Poison In The Shadows
by Haleine Delail
Summary: The team at the Jeffersonian are stumped. The latest body-find has yielded no clues, and the FBI probe has turned up zero. They have nothing, until a mysterious stranger in a pin-striped suit arrives and literally sheds some light on the problem at-hand. The team is skeptical, but given the danger the man claims is imminent, they may have no choice but to listen to him.
1. Chapter 1

**Hello all!**

**Weirdly, on the heels of the end of the most emotional fanfiction venture imaginable, I give you this: experimental, not at all gut-wrenching, somewhat clinical, but hopefully fun and clever. I'm not used to writing ensemble pieces - mostly it's All About The Time Lord, and I'm definitely better with science fiction than actual science, so we'll see how it goes! I'll tell you one thing: it will be freeing to write for American voices for once! ;-)**

**To tell you the truth, I'm not sure who my audience will be for this story. It is a Doctor Who/Bones crossover, and I'm the only person I know who loves them both! Though, even if you're only a fan of one or the other, I would encourage you to give it a shot, since both worlds, I hope, will be well-represented, and fans of each show will find something to love! I watch them for the way in which they solve problems in the most intelligent manner possible, and intermix humor with high tension, so it's fairly likely you'll wind up liking the other fandom too.**

**If you work out what's going on early in the game, please, no spoilers! That should go without saying.**

**So... context. This takes place sometime in the fall of 2009. That means that "Bones" is in early Season 5, so Booth and Brennan are still "just partners," at least as far as she's concerned, and Angela and Hodgins are still occasionally visiting the Land of Awkward. The Doctor is in his pouty year, sans Companion, and has been to San Helios through a portal on a London bus, but has not yet visited the Bowie Station on Mars.**

**And with that, let's proceed. :-D**

* * *

**Chapter 1**

"This is weird," said Agent Booth, standing at the bottom of the stairs, looking up.

Brennan frowned. "There's nothing weird about it. We've been called to a crime scene because a skeleton was found, and foul play is suspected. Given that you are an FBI Agent and I am a Forensic Anthropologist, I would say that it's, in fact, perfectly normal."

"No, I mean the building."

She looked around. "It is a middle-class, suburban building, likely built in the last five years, with the characteristic homogenous, and homogenizing, lack of décor. It is, if anything, the opposite of weird."

He frowned back. "Okay, you know what? You're right, it's not weird at all. Let's just go. Fourth floor."

"Yes, I think that would be best," Dr. Brennan said, as she began to climb the stairs, toting her crime-scene inspection kit in her right hand.

He shook his head and followed her, unable to rid himself of the feeling that something felt hinky (well, hinkier than usual). He looked at the clean, light-blue carpet and the whitewashed walls and staircase banisters. He looked at the strong track lighting and high, trendy, third-floor windows that gave the illusion of letting in sunlight, but in reality, most of the light was artificial.

He had been at just about every type of murder scene imaginable, and one thing they all had in common was that they generally had nothing in common. He had learned that all sorts of people kill, they do it in all sorts of places, and there is no such thing as a _typical _place for a body-find. But this one felt weird. It just didn't feel _murder-y_. He smiled to himself at the prospect of saying that to his partner. He filed it away for later, just for the entertainment value of seeing her reaction.

When they reached the fourth floor, they could immediately see which apartment must house the body. Men and women in FBI-issue gear were milling about, filing things, making calls, labeling evidence. When they saw Dr. Brennan and Agent Booth, everyone knew to disperse from the skeleton itself.

Brennan approached the human remains as she always did, with a scowl of scrutiny and all due reverence. It was sitting upright in an armchair in the corner of a bedroom. The right leg was bent at the knee, the ankle resting on the opposite knee. There was a book in its lap, its hands still holding onto it. The skeleton was wearing jeans, white socks and a burgundy tee-shirt, but all of the clothing, along with the book, were ripped to shreds. There was a half-full glass of beer on a side table within arm's reach that had gone flat and had gathered a bit of mold on the surface, and a reading lamp hanging from a sconce just overhead, still illuminated.

"The victim is male," Brennan announced. "Twenty-five to thirty-five years old. Caucasian."

Booth waited for more. "Yeah, what else?"

As if on cue, a junior agent appeared by his side. "Found this in the kitchen, sir," the young man said, handing Booth a light brown leather wallet encased in a clear plastic evidence bag. "Charles Michael Hasbrook, age thirty-one. His name is on the lease to this apartment."

"That doesn't mean that's who this is," Brennan pointed out sternly to the agent. "We'll have to pull dental records to be sure."

"Thanks, Green," Booth said, taking the wallet. He then took a moment to call in Hasbrook's name and address, and request dental records be sent to the Jeffersonian.

Meanwhile, Brennan moved closer and squinted hard at the skull. "This is weird."

"Gee, that's profound, Bones, wish I'd thought of it myself. Let me write that down."

She looked up at him, annoyed. "No, this is _actually_ weird. Your earlier weirdness was just some... _gut_ feeling thing that I don't understand."

"What's weird, then?"

"The bones are completely clean. Practically white. There's no sign at all of decomposition, or of any flesh ever having been attached."

"Wait... what?"

"Look at the upholstery, Booth," she said, gesturing to the seat under the victim. "Look at the clothing. Nothing has seeped in - no blood, no lipids, no sign of a post-mortem bowel release. In fact there are no discernible post-mortem or peri-mortem indicators whatsoever."

"Are you sure the skeleton is real?"

"Yes, of course," she confirmed. "I've worked with human bones for my entire adult life, Booth, I'm the best in my field. If the skeleton were a fake, I'd have noticed it right away."

He got close and inspected quickly. Even _he_ knew that the chair's cushion, and the victim's clothes ought to be soaked with the ugly fluids of ravaging death. He said, "Yeah, you're right. What gives?"

"I have no idea. I also see no signs of scavengers having fed on the body. Hodgins will be able to tell us for sure about insect activity, and of course, I'll have to take the remains back to the lab and examine the bones with the clothing removed but..." she sighed, standing up straight, putting her hands on her hips. "This is weird."

"Is it possible he died a long time ago, and then... I don't know, someone dressed him in these torn-up clothes and put him here?"

"I suppose, but we'll have to get him back to the lab."

"Yeah, and check the building's surveillance," he muttered, making a note. "Time of death?"

"No idea."

"Agent Booth?" said a female voice.

He turned, and another junior agent stood nervously nearby. "Yep?"

"The landlord is here," she said. "He's the one who found the body and called it in."

"Okay, thanks," he said. Of his partner, he asked, "I'm going to go talk to the landlord, are you going to be okay, Bones?"

"That's a ridiculous question," she answered with an absent mutter, having gone back to inspecting the anomalous remains.

"Right," he said, clicking his pen closed.

* * *

Out in the hallway, at the top of the light-blue sterile staircase, a balding, stout, middle-aged man in a high-end Hawaiian shirt stood, chewing on his fingernail.

"Hi, are you the landlord?"

"Yes. Anthony Lind," the man said, holding out his non-chewed hand for Booth to shake.

Booth shook it. "Special Agent Seeley Booth. So, you're the one who found the body?"

"Yes, about an hour and a half ago."

"How?" Booth asked, clicking his pen open again, brandishing his short stack of index cards.

"I let myself in."

"Okay. Why?"

The man shifted nervously, not knowing quite what to do with his hands. "Well, I hadn't seen Charlie in about a week, so I got worried and started calling. He didn't answer his phone, even after fourteen hours, so I let myself in to check on him."

"Do you deliver this kind of concerned, personal service to all of your tenants?"

"No," said Lind. "I know it's creepy... and technically illegal. But Charlie doesn't have any family in town, and, you know... he reminds me of my own kid. Except my real kid's a deadbeat, and Charlie's not. So I took a liking to him - sue me."

"You say you hadn't seen him in a week?"

"Little over a week, actually. I live in the apartment downstairs, in the front - unit number one. I'm the landlord and I manage the place as well. Charlie gets a grocery drop-off every Tuesday afternoon. He works weekdays, so I always sign for it, and he comes to pick it up when he gets home. Last week's delivery didn't come, neither did yesterday's. I didn't want to meddle - I figured calling the market would be meddling, so I just called Charlie to see what was up."

Booth jotted down what the man was saying. "How many times did you call?"

"I started calling at five yesterday, when I was sure that the delivery wasn't going to come. Called at five, at eight, and at ten, finally left a message on that last call. I tried again this morning when I got up, but no luck. So I came up and let myself in. Saw him sitting there... all dead and whatnot."

"Do you know which grocery service he used?"

"Treeger's Market," said Lind. "They have their own delivery service - they don't contract out."

"Is there a regular delivery person?"

"There's a few people who rotate in and out. Usually it's a guy, once in a while a girl."

"Is it the same three or four people?"

"Usually, yeah."

"Would you know them if you saw them?"

"Yeah."

"Did Mr. Hasbrook have any close friends? A girlfriend?"

"I see him with people once in a while," the landlord shrugged. "He'll turn up with a couple of guys and a twelve-pack sometimes, usually when there's a game on. And, been seeing him with a blonde pretty regularly lately."

"Do you know her name?"

"Nah," said Lind. "She's attractive, though. She usually doesn't leave 'til morning."

"Mr. Hasbrook never introduced you?"

"Well, I liked the kid, but it's not like we were close. I only see people come and go because my apartment is out front, and I have my computer set up by the window. Does that make me nosy?"

"When was the last time you actually _saw_ Mr. Hasbrook?"

"A week ago Monday. Ten days ago, or so, I guess. I was leaving to go have dinner with my mom, just as Charlie was coming home from work. We said hello to each other, made some quick small-talk... you know."

Booth made another note, then thought for a moment. "Let me ask you something: did you smell anything funny over the past week?"

"What, like a rotting body?"

"Yeah, like that."

"No," Lind said, shaking his head. Then, he stopped and scrunched his nose. "That's weird, isn't it?"

"What did Charles Hasbrook do for a living?"

"He worked in a meat-packing plant outside of town."

Bells went off in Booth's head. Meat packing. No flesh on the bones. Lots of very sharp instruments, and numerous people associated with the victim who are trained to use them. Suddenly, he felt very tired.

"Do you have contact information for his employer?" Booth asked.

"Of course. Come downstairs, I'll get it for you."

"Thanks." But before following Mr. Lind downstairs, he turned to a nearby junior agent, and said, "Ask Dr. Brennan to check out the fridge and freezer, see if there's stash of meat. If so, tell her we need to find out if any of it is human."

"Yes, sir."

"Thanks, Agent Paulson."

Booth made it his business to know the names and faces of the junior agents and forensic workers that tended to buzz around a crime scene along with him and Dr. Brennan in the first few minutes after a crime scene opened. Brennan didn't see the point, but he knew that it was good to treat "underlings" with respect because then it was easier to get better, more immediate work out of them. Also, his mother had raised him simply to treat everyone with respect, period.

But it also served another purpose. Knowing who belonged at the crime scene and who didn't could be a valuable investigative tool.

As he went down the stairs to unit number one to follow up with Anthony Lind, Booth spied a man in full FBI-issued gear, one whom he had never seen before. They met on the landing, and the man tipped the brim of his cap to Agent Booth, and smiled slightly, before proceeding up the stairs.

Booth made quick mental notes of the man, intending to find out his name later. The stranger was tall - just a hair shorter than Booth himself - and thin. He had sharp, distinctive features, but struck Booth as neither good-looking nor homely. He seemed to have dark hair, and the only way Booth could tell was by the sideburns that protruded from below the FBI cap. Not muttonchops exactly, but still noticeable, especially since the FBI personal deportment code forbade sideburns such as these. And, strangest of all, the man wore tennis shoes. More accurately, he wore red canvas Converse, which was definitely not standard-issue gear for a federal agent.


	2. Chapter 2

**Well, gee, I am surprised and delighted to find that this story does have an audience after all! Glad to see there are other Doctor Who/Bones people out there, even if you are new to one fandom or the other. :-)**

**My request is as always: if you follow the story and enjoy it (or even don't enjoy it... who knows?) it's only fair to take a few moments to leave some feedback! I would very much like to hear from you, at least SOME of the time. It's part of what keeps me going! Thanks - you are beautiful!**

**And we continue...**

* * *

**Chapter 2**

The current scene at the Jeffersonian was bleak and rare. Four forensic experts sat on chairs and sofas, facing one another, somewhat slumped down, defeated, saying nothing.

Each felt helpless. None of them had ever been this completely stymied before, and certainly this had never happened to them as a team, with all their various expertise and abilities. They had done everything they could, which was not much, and it had led them back here to the sitting area in Dr. Brennan's office to do what might look like _moping_ to an outside observer.

Angela Montenegro had had almost nothing to do to begin with. Her arena was helping ID the victim, and manipulating technology, but dental records had definitively identified Charles Hasbrook, so no facial reconstruction was necessary. The apartment building's security footage had been cooperatively turned over to the FBI by the landlord Anthony Lind, so no finessing of the camera equipment was needed either. Angela had called the FBI crime lab and spoken to the computer specialist, who had ascertained that the digital images showed absolutely no evidence of tampering. The victim used a cell phone from 2002, very rarely, if ever, and owned a television and cable box, but no computer. The last call he had made had been seven days before his death, to his mother in Milwaukee, and they had spoken for 37 minutes. A junior agent on the scene had figured that out before Booth and Brennan had even arrived.

Dr. Saroyan was useless without flesh, blood, lipids, organs hair, and the like. And they had scoured Hasbrook's skeleton for any tiny sign of skin, organ, muscle, tendon, even fingerprints that might tell them if anyone had handled the skeletonized remains before the forensics team had arrived. Absolutely _nothing _soft was left on this body. She felt sabotaged by the circumstances, and also was stumped as to how this was even possible, when the victim had been seen by the landlord only ten days earlier, and the building's security footage confirmed it. He had been alive ten days ago, but his bones were picked clean as if he'd lain exposed in the Himalayas for a century. It made no sense.

Jack Hodgins had three doctorates in relatively diverse fields, and even he had nothing. The only spores found in great quantity on the victim's bones or clothing were those contained in the air ducts of the building, and he had been able to determine that with the Mass Spectrometer inside of a half-hour. There had been nothing anomalous about it, no particulates singular enough to warrant looking-into, to determine if perhaps the body had been moved. The bones showed zero indication of insect or scavenger activity, so it was down to the bones themselves, and the bones only.

And yet, even "Bones" herself was unable to glean anything useful. The victim's jaw had a remodeled injury, probably from a hockey stick when he was about nine years old. There were other signs of a typical amateur athlete, the odd fracture here, broken rib there... all professionally-set and remodeled over the years before. But that was all she could find. No nicks on bone, nor any sign of force or struggle. Not even a hairline fracture that might give a peri-mortem picture. The remains had arrived in the lab this morning. The best-trained, most intelligent, field-tested and storied bone expert in the known world had spent eight hours with the bones under a microscope and she had found absolutely zilch.

They had no cause of death, plus a bizarre mystery in which a human body somehow loses all its flesh without rotting or leaving anything behind, all in the space of ten days or less.

It was now nearly seven o'clock in the evening, and the team had convened in Brennan's office to discuss whether to continue tonight, or quit for the time being, and try to get a fresh perspective tomorrow. But all they had wound up doing was venting on each other, whining about the bind they were in, and trying to one-up each other concerning how screwed they actually were.

"Well, what do we do?" Hodgins asked with a reluctant sigh. He'd gotten tired of the silence.

"Let's not forget," Cam offered as consolation. "There's still police work to be done. Booth questioned several people at the meat-packing plant today, and he still hasn't gotten back to us... that might mean he's got a lead. And he said he wanted Sweets to take a swing at the landlord, just to see if he hits on anything..."

"Oh, the meat!" Angela said, sitting up straight, looking at Hodgins with hope in her eyes.

"The meat was non-existent. There was only one large wrapper left in the freezer with some residue having soaked in," he told her flatly.

"And?"

"It was all either beef or pork. The paper used for wrapping matches the paper used in the plant where the victim worked. Totally clean."

"Okay," she said, deflated, sitting back again. "I never thought I'd be _disappointed _to hear that meat stored in someone's kitchen isn't actually human."

"Still," Cam said. "The fact that a large meat wrapper was in the freezer with no meat in it... that's a clue. We'll have to see what else Booth gets."

Brennan was the only one who stayed silent. Angela examined her briefly. If she didn't know better, she'd swear her friend was pouting.

Cam looked around at everyone and noted the discouraged, half-blank looks on their faces. She announced, "Yep, our brains are fried. I vote we all go home, meet back here in the morning with smiles on our faces and a new pair of eyes on. I'll even get everyone a good, stiff espresso as motivation. Sound good?"

"Sounds good to me," Angela said, getting to her feet as well.

"Yep, I'm down with that," Hodgins agreed, following suit. "I'm going to hold you to that espresso."

Only one person stayed put, in her chair.

"Dr. Brennan," Cam said to her. "Go home."

Brennan seemed to come out of some kind of stupor. "No, you guys can go. I'm going to work a little longer." She now stood up as well.

"Dr. Brennan, come on," Cam coaxed. "All of us are totally baffled like horses with bowling balls - it's not just you. It's okay to take a breather to get a fresh start. Now go."

"I need to call Booth..."

"Booth will tell you the same thing. Go get some rest."

A voice sounded from behind her. "Dr. Saroyan?"

Cam turned. "Hi, Harry, what's up?"

In the doorway of Brennan's office, there stood a Jeffersonian security guard, named Harry. "I have a man here... a visitor. He says he has information about the Hasbrook case."

"Well, who is he?" Cam wanted to know.

"He's from Scotland Yard," said the guard.

"Scotland Yard? Are you kidding me? Did you check his credentials?

"Yes, of course, Dr. Saroyan."

"Is he armed?"

"Er, no, I'm not armed. I don't do armed, I never do armed," said a man with an English accent, stepping out from behind the security guard. His hands were in his pockets, and he was sauntering through the door of Brennan's office. "And believe you me, that big brute has checked. Are you the boss here?"

"Yes," Cam answered. "Dr. Camille Saroyan. And you are?"

"Like Harry told you: Scotland Yard." The man pulled a small leather folder from his pocket and flipped it open for Cam. She took it with both hands and inspected it. She was no expert, but as far as she could tell, it was a legitimate ID badge from the famed British investigative agency.

Cam handed back the man's credentials, then looked him over. He was tall, thin and wore a close-fitting royal-blue suit with dark red pinstripes, along with a navy blue dress shirt and a burgundy and navy printed tie. His hair was dark and thick, and was coiffed so as to appear mussed. His eyes were dark, his facial features sharp. His demeanor, in spite of the occasion, was mildly whimsical, and he seemed to have something of a perpetual smirk. Reinforcing that whimsy, on his feet, he wore red Converse. This reminded Cam of Booth, in the way that he rebelled against the FBI dress code by wearing audacious socks and ties, and his Cocky belt buckle.

"You have information about Charles Hasbrook?" she asked him.

"Yes, I do," said the stranger, and he looked back at the guard, indicating to Cam that the information was sensitive.

"Harry, if you wouldn't mind?" she said.

"Of course, Dr. Saroyan. I'll be right outside."

"Thanks."

The stranger smiled at them all, as if in awe. "So you're _the team_ at the Jeffersonian," he gushed. "Oh, I've read all about you lot. You're _brilliant_, you are."

Angela, Hodgins and Brennan all stood still, unsure of what in the world to say to this man, whom they had no reason to trust.

"Which one of you ladies is Dr. Brennan?" he asked.

"I am," Brennan said, raising her left hand.

"Oh, now..." he said, stepping toward her. She instinctively took a step back. "You are truly amazing. Truly, truly. I have never met a human being who knows as much about human bone as I do, but I've got to say, you come really, _really _close, do you know that?"

Brennan opened her mouth to protest, but the stranger had already moved on.

"Dr. Jack Hodgins, I presume?"

"Yes," Hodgins croaked out.

"Three Ph.D.'s, is it? Entomology, botany and geology?"

"Yeah, so?"

The stranger laughed with a sort of delighted "Ho ho ho," and slapped Hodgins on the shoulder. "You're the one who works out where they died, aren't you? This team would be lost without you!"

"Are you here to tell us that Hasbrook was killed somewhere else, then moved to the apartment building, because we've already..."

"No, that's not why I'm here," said the stranger. Next, he turned his attention to Angela. "And Miss Montenegro?"

"Yeah, that's me, and could I please see your credentials as well?" she asked, seemingly unimpressed by the slightly zany British interloper.

The man in the suit dug into his pocket one more time and extracted the small leather folder, and handed it to Angela. She opened it and inspected the badge inside.

Beside her, Hodgins was glancing over her shoulder at it, trying to be subtle.

And he saw something he didn't like. He was unable to hide the catch in his breath, though no one reacted to it.

Angela handed back the folder and crossed her arms over her chest defensively.

"You, Angela... you might be the most remarkable person in this room," he said. "Bachelor of Arts only, no advanced degrees, and yet you are able to run and jump and fly with the best and the brightest, these people who have to have Ph.D.'s to do what they do. But not you! Not you! You give people back their face when someone has taken it away! And it just... _emerges _from you, doesn't it? From your pen? No Ivy League backin' you up... just you."

He smiled warmly at her, and shoved his hands in his pockets, rocking back on his heels to admire her.

"Thank you," she said, surprised. "That's... that's very kind of you."

"And Dr. Saroyan, of course," he said, turning to greet Cam once more. "The youngest person ever to work as a lead pathologist and coroner in the City of New York. Trained in law enforcement and in medicine... now _that_ is a super-hot combination, if you don't mind my saying so. But I'm not really here to say so, so..."

He turned and walked exaggeratedly around Cam, then around the sofa, and planted himself halfway between Brennan's desk and the door. He took a wide stance and said, "What I am here to say is that your usual methods aren't working because this isn't a usual death. You won't find the truth the way you always do - not this time, not without my help."

"And why is that?" Cam asked.

He made a face as if wincing, and began to pace slowly. "Eh, I don't want to say yet, not until I'm sure. I'm going to need some time alone with the skeleton."

"Um, I'm sorry, Mr. Scotland Yard, but you haven't even told us your name yet," Cam firmly pointed out. "We've had no word from our FBI liaison that you are affiliated with this case - why on Earth should we trust you alone in a room with human remains that are the center of an active homicide investigation?"

He scratched the back of his head and took a few steps forward toward her. "Dr. Saroyan, you have already let me in here because you have absolutely nothing, and I am _the only_ person or thing offering any help."

"Our FBI liaison is still in the field," Brennan interjected. "He may yet..."

"Agent Booth won't find anything," he interrupted. "Sorry, Dr. Brennan, but he's barking up the wrong tree. You are going to need me." His tone was emphatic and certain, his eyes wide, addressing everyone in the room in turn.

The four Jeffersonian experts simply stared at him.

Growing a tad impatient, he added, "And it's going to have to be soon, because the longer you wait, the more danger you are all in."


	3. Chapter 3

**Thank you for all the affirming feedback last time! I am grateful for your input and enthusiasm. Thanks for feeding the needy. ;-)**

**Okay, so, let's continue with our bony mystery! Please enjoy and review!**

* * *

**Chapter 3**

"Excuse me, but we are in the midst of an open investigation, and you are an outsider," Dr. Brennan said, somewhat in disbelief of the audacious interloper. "Protocol dicates..."

"Correction, you are _stuck in a ditch_ in your investigation," said the stranger. "Once again, Dr. Brennan, the fact is, I am currently your only hope. Five minutes, that's all I'm asking. Five minutes alone with the skeleton - you can watch me on the surveillance monitors. I won't do anything to jeopardise the bones, or the investigation."

"No, _the fact is_ that I am the best in the world at what I do, and that is examining human bones for evidence. _The fact is_, you are a cop. From your credentials, you're an elite cop, but you're a cop. _The logical conclusion _is that if I didn't find anything useful on those remains, you won't either. Simple syllogism."

"Best in the world?"

"Yes, I have Ph.D.'s in anthropology, forensic anthropology and kinesiology. That means I know humans, how to examine their bones and lives to hypothesize as to what might have happened to them, and how the human skeleton and musculature work together. I've written several published works on..."

"Oh, sorry, didn't I mention?" interrupted the man in the suit, whimsy returning to his voice. "My doctorates are in anthropology, forensic anthropology, kinesiology and osteology."

Brennan folded her arms over her chest defensively. "Excuse me? That... that cannot be true. If you had that level of expertise, and you work in law-enforcement, I'd have heard of you."

He shrugged. "Maybe, maybe not. As I said, I've never met a human being who knows as much about bones as I do, but you come really close."

Brennan did not move, except to bite the inside of her cheek as she often did when all she wanted was to throw something heavy at someone.

There was a long silence while the Jeffersonian team, and the outsider, looked at each other.

Finally, Cam turned to the well-schooled Scotland Yard official, and said, "Would you please excuse us for a moment?"

"Sure," he said with a smile.

She motioned for Hodgins, Angela and Brennan to join her outside the office door. As they filed out, the man sat down on a sofa, facing away from them, and folded his arms.

"Could he seriously have more degrees in _bone stuff_ than Brennan?" Angela whispered.

"I very seriously doubt it," Brennan declared. "I'm fairly certain he's exhibiting what's called _bravado_. Roughly defined, it's a manipulation tactic used most often by males, whereby he exaggerates his own attributes in an attempt to silence everyone else and get what he wants. Also known as _machismo._"

"Yes, thank you for clearing that up, Dr. Brennan," said Cam. To everyone, she said, "Okay, so what the hell do we do? I mean, this guy... I don't trust him as far as I could throw him, but he's got the creds from Scotland Yard, he's clearly done his homework, multiple doctorates or not. And he's right: we're totally up a creek on this one."

"I think we should let him in," said Hodgins, very quietly.

No one seemed to hear him.

"I think that we should systematically verify his degrees from all of his _alma maters_ before proceeding," Brennan suggested. "As well as contacting Scotland Yard. Booth and I have a connection there..."

Then came an interruption. "Hi guys, what's going on?" They all turned their attention toward the voice. It belonged to Dr. Lance Sweets, entering through a side door, usually only used by Jeffersonian personnel. He was carrying a black duffel bag, sweating profusely, and wearing a navy blue FBI tee-shirt, shorts and running shoes.

"What the hell, Sweets?" asked Angela.

"The FBI is remodeling the weight room," he answered. "The Agents have been approved to use another facility at the Bureau's expense, but not, say, surprisingly fit psychological profilers who don't want to let their figures go. So, Cam got me a temporary access card to the Jeffersonian's gym."

"Okay, Sweets, I'm glad you're here," Cam said, a bit of desperation seeping into her voice. Quickly, she ran down the situation concerning the go-nowhere investigation and the blue-suited stranger, who was supposedly a four-time Ph.D. from Scotland Yard. "What would _you _do?"

"Want me to talk to him and see if he's a sociopath?" asked Sweets.

"He's not a sociopath," Hodgins said, again, with such uncharacteristic timidity that no one seemed to hear.

"Yes, please," Cam said, gesturing toward the door.

Sweets shrugged. "Okay." He went into Dr. Brennan's office, and as he did, the man on the sofa stood up. Angela, Cam and Brennan watched them shake hands and chat a bit. Hodgins paced nervously, keeping his eyes on the sterile floor.

The stranger showed Sweets his credentials, and did most of the talking while Sweets listened. After only a minute or two, Sweets led him to the door, and the two men stepped out into the lab area.

"So, our friend here is going to the bone room to examine the skeleton, and we are going to watch on the monitor," Sweets announced. "Sound good?"

"He's determined that I'm not a sociopath," said the stranger, delightedly, hands in pockets. "Innit brilliant? I've never had someone do that before."

Sweets seemed surprised, then covered it quickly with an affable grin. "Don't tell me you have a doctorate in psychology too."

"Okay. I won't tell you. Which way is the bone room?"

"I'll show you," said Dr. Brennan, taking the lead. Sweets, Angela, and Cam retreated through a door that connected the lab with the Jeffersonian's security control room. Hodgins sneaked off behind a partition. Again, no one seemed to notice.

* * *

Brennan wasted none of her alone-time with the stranger.

"So, will you be profiling the osteons?" she asked, walking a few paces ahead of the man.

He smirked. "No, Dr. Brennan," he said. "Since you already have the sex, age, and in fact, the _full identity_ of the victim, including dietary indicators, that won't be necessary. But I understand your inclination to test my knowledge."

"All right," she said, not appearing to have heard him call her on her decision to 'quiz' him. "Maybe it would be best if you assess secondary ossification from cartilaginous molds."

"Well, since the victim is not a newborn, I don't think that would be a good use of my time. And it probably wouldn't give us much insight anyway, since it's an internal, natural process of bone development and would have no bearing on a person's death... although, you folks at the Jeffersonian, you find ways to _make_ things have bearing on a person's death, and I think that's fantastic. It's why you're so bloody amazing. You have _imagination_!"

"What we do here is hard science, based on facts, not imagination," she told him firmly. "Perhaps your career in law-enforcement has made you forget what that means."

"Touché," he said. "I suppose I meant _innovation_, not imagination."

When they reached the bone room, she stopped at the door. "I'm curious," she said. "Have you considered taking your talents to Canada?"

"Why do you ask? Because Canada has ten provinces and three territories where forensic scientists are very strongly encouraged to have police experience?"

"Yes," she said, crestfallen that he knew this piece of trivia.

"Well, I'm happy doing what I do," he assured her.

"Something to consider," she commented. "Though Toronto might not be the place to go."

"Because the province of Ontario requires forensic specialists to have medical training? Well, that doesn't scare me."

The implication that this admittedly very smart weirdo also had medical training was not lost on Dr. Brennan, in spite of her usual inability to capture subtleties in conversation.

She gestured inside the room. "Here you go, Dr...?" she leaned her ear forward slightly to indicate that she was waiting for more information from him.

"Doctor," he said, nodding. "Just _Doctor_, will do fine."

This exasperated her, but she figured she'd leave the questioning later on to Booth and Sweets. "Fine, Doctor. Please remember, you are under surveillance, and Jeffersonian security guards are armed."

He smiled softly and nodded, saluting at her a bit. He turned and walked into the bone room. Dr. Brennan decided to join her colleagues in the surveillance office.

* * *

"So if he's not a sociopath, then what in the name of Thomas Dwight is up with this guy?" Cam asked Sweets, as soon as they were out of earshot.

"He's not a sociopath, but he's probably delusional," said Sweets with a big smile. "Even so, if you are as totally stuck as you say you are - which I have _never_ heard you claim before - then, letting him in on a limited basis might not be the worst idea in the world."

"Wow," said Cam.

Sweets continued, "Delusional individuals can be quite knowledgeable, as they operate rationally within the framework of their delusion. If he has convinced himself that he's a bone expert of Dr. Brennan's caliber and then some, he might very well have done some major studying-up on the subject. He might not have the credentials he says he does, but if he _believes _he's Scotland Yard, then he will behave with integrity concerning the investigation, and will not do anything to jeopardize it."

"So, you want to observe him," Cam said with a smirk. "That's what I'm hearing."

"Well, yeah, but it also might not hurt to see if he can find something that you people have missed," Sweets answered a bit defensively.

"It still seems weird," Angela commented. "He is way too smooth. Plus, that suit... and all the stuff he knew about us..."

She pushed open the door, and the three of them filed into the small surveillance room, lined with screens. Cam quickly explained to the guard what they were doing there, and he nodded, without a word, and went back to his control board.

"Your educational and professional profiles are online," Sweets reminded Angela. "A lot of people know this team. Especially people interested in crime and/or law-enforcement."

"He's creepy," she argued.

"And good-looking," Sweets teased.

"So? I'm celibate right now, thank you very much," she reminded him, hands on hips.

"He didn't hit on you, did he?"

"No, but..."

"Yeah, you're uncomfortable because he's a good-looking man with a smooth-operator demeanor and he didn't try to get into your pants. Get over it."

"That is not why he's creepy," she protested. "What about Brennan and Cam? He didn't hit on them either. He might be gay."

"He told me I was hot," Cam corrected.

"Yeah, he's totally not gay," Sweets declared.

"What, because you're a profiler you have gaydar too?" Angela wanted to know.

"Yes. Yes I do. So which screen is it?"

Angela's jaw gapped open with exasperation. She couldn't tell if Sweets was serious or not, but upon glancing at Cam and her almost-laugh, she decided just to drop the subject.

They watched the man in the suit as he walked reverently into the bone room, without Dr. Brennan. For a minute, he just stood with his hands in his pockets, bent at the waist, looking very closely at the skeleton.

Brennan entered the surveillance room, and asked, "What's he doing?"

"So far, nothing, he's just looking," Cam reported.

"Did you quiz him?" asked Sweets.

"What?" asked Brennan.

"Did you ask him bone questions on the way?"

She was nonplussed that he would know that, but admitted, "Yes, a little. It was a rational thing to do."

"Of course it was. And how did he fare?"

"Just fine," she said, grudgingly.

"Not surprised," Sweets told her.

They watched as the man on the screen walked over to the wall and pulled a pair of rubber gloves from the top box in the rack and pulled them on. From there, he switched on the video microscope and slid the victim's right femur under the viewer. He used several filters and settings to examine the bone, but said nothing, did nothing to indicate what he was thinking, and made no notes.

After another couple of minutes, he returned the femur to its rightful place on the table. And then he turned completely away from the bones, discarded the gloves, pulled some sort of instrument from his suit pocket, and began walking around the room. It looked like he was inspecting the floors and walls.

"What in the world is he doing?" Cam asked aloud.

"He's clearly done with the remains," said Brennan. "Let's get him out of there. If he's found nothing, let's not let him waste any more of our time."

"No, no," Sweets interrupted, gently stopping Dr. Brennan by taking her arm. "Let me watch him a bit longer. If he does something to compromise the bones, you can go stop him."

The man took his instrument, and pointed it into the corner of the room, and the thing seemed to buzz and emit a blue light from the end. Then he shifted positions, and aimed it at an area underneath the instrument tray, repeating the action. He did this in several places around the room, while the Jeffersonian team watched with total confusion, and Sweets watched with intrigue.

"Oh, this dude is definitely not right in the head," Angela said.

"In my expert opinion," said Sweets. "You're probably right."

* * *

Dr. Jack Hodgins was shaken. He had walked away from the crew to catch his breath. He'd obtained a glass of water, taken a few good sips, and splashed the rest on his face. Then, he made sure that Dr. Brennan had left the stranger alone in the bone room, before creeping toward room's doorway himself. He needed to see the stranger in action. He didn't know much about bones himself, no more than he'd been able to glean just from listening to Dr. Brennan, Zach and the Squinterns talk over the years... but he knew plenty about the shadowy, dark corners of the internet, where only the strangest things brewed.


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4**

"Here you guys are, what are you doing in here?" Agent Booth said, walking into the surveillance office.

"How'd you find us?" Brennan asked.

"When no one would answer their phone, and there was literally _not one _face I recognized in the lab, I asked at the security desk," he explained.

"Did you get anything at the meat-packing plant?" asked Cam, hopeful.

"No," he said. "No one had any beef with the guy." Then he seemed to realize his pun, and started laughing.

Sweets turned around from his position at the monitor and pointed at Booth. "Heh, beef. I like it," he said, and laughed along briefly.

"No one? No flirtations, jealousies, petty theft from an employee locker? Lost football bet? Someone didn't like the way he combed his hair?" Cam asked.

"_Nada_ that I could find, " Booth said, flopping exasperatedly into an empty chair.

"What about the grocery delivery service?" asked Brennan.

"Same thing. Nada. Guy ordered his fruits and veggies and bread and milk every Monday morning, got a delivery every Tuesday afternoon, via the landlord, and the customer always paid his bill on-time, including a generous tip for the delivery person."

"Did the tip always make it to the correct delivery person?" asked Angela.

"I asked each delivery person who still works for the service and has ever delivered to Charlie Hasbrook's address. And it did," Booth answered flatly. "They said he always tipped at least twenty-five per cent, and even more around the holidays. No evidence at all that the landlord ever pilfered. So... yeah, I've got squat. Except for that guy with the red shoes."

"What guy with the red shoes?" asked Brennan.

"Oh, it's probably nothing. There was a guy at the crime scene," Booth explained. "He was dressed in FBI gear, but I'd never seen him before... and I make it a point to know all of the junior agents. This has happened before - it's always turned out to be nothing to worry about. He's probably new. I just haven't gotten around to checking into it yet."

"But if he's got no right to be at the crime scene..." Cam began.

"I know, I know," Booth finished.

"When you say red shoes," Cam asked, after thinking it over for a few seconds. "Do you mean Converse? Like those awful old 1960's Chuck Taylor hipster things?"

"Yeah."

"Did he have a British accent?"

"I don't know, I didn't hear him talk."

"Is this the guy?" Cam asked, pointing at the screen.

* * *

Hodgins lingered in the doorway of the bone room, watching the man in the pin-striped suit aim his buzzing blue light into the corners and under the supply cart. An excited knot formed in his stomach, and in spite of himself, he smiled.

"Wow," he whispered.

When the stranger had exhausted his five minutes alone with the remains, he turned and walked back toward the doorway, where he immediately spied Hodgins lurking, half-concealed.

"Oh," said the stranger, slightly startled. "Hello." He swallowed hard and shoved the buzzing device back into his coat pocket.

Hodgins sauntered slowly up to the man. "So," he said, quite nervous and trying not to show it. "Where's the TARDIS?"

The man immediately broke eye contact, shifting his gaze down at Hodgins' shoes. "The... I'm sorry, the what?"

Hodgins chuckled. "I can't believe it," he said, his bright blue eyes dancing over the man's face. "You're actually real, aren't you?"

"As are you."

"You're the Doctor."

"As are you."

"No, I am _a_ doctor," said Hodgins. "Three times over, as you know. Doctorates, those things, they're a dime a dozen in this building. But you... you're one of a kind. _The _Doctor." He was still careful to keep his voice low.

The Doctor said nothing, merely severed eye-contact once again, and nervously scratched his nose.

Hodgins asked, "Is that... that thing you were aiming into the corners, that's the sonic screwdriver, isn't it?"

The Doctor nodded. No words.

"May I see it?" asked Hodgins, holding out his hand. "I swear, I won't point it at anything or damage it. I just want to see."

A pause, during which the Doctor contemplated the man before him with a scowl. Then he reached into his pocket reluctantly, and handed the sonic screwdriver over.

As Hodgins turned it over and over in his hands with eyes bright like a little kid, he said, "This is unbelievable. Manipulates _matter_ using _soundwaves_. I can't even fathom a tool this size that can be that concentrated and precise with sound waves! To pick locks and maneuver with actual data, encrypt and decrypt... the mind boggles!"

"Yes, well..."

"According to Dr. Michio Kaku at Harvard, that sort of technology won't even be possible for at least a thousand years. Probably more like fifteen-hundred!"

"Well, not on _this_ planet," muttered the Doctor, but Hodgins didn't seem to hear him. "Can I have my screwdriver back?"

"Yeah," Hodgins said, handing it over.

The Doctor said, "The U.S. State Department have a file on you, as well as the FBI. Says you're a conspiracy theorist, but benign."

Hodgin's arms fell to his sides in annoyance, and his face immediately came over equally irritated. "I hate the word benign. I am not benign!"

"Oh, sorry. Do you _want _people to think you're going to blow up Norad?" asked the Doctor. Then he gestured as if to wave away Hodgins' insecurities. "Trust me, I am _not_ listed as benign in most of this planet's government databases, and it's a blooming great pain in the arse, is what it is. Feel lucky. Anyway... how did you know it was me?"

"The psychic paper," said Hodgins. "I didn't trust you - I thought your creds would be fake. When I looked over Angela's shoulder at it, it seemed to blip and blink in and out, and it changed to something else, right before my eyes."

"Ah. In a regular person, it wouldn't matter that you expected to see a fake, but you... I guess your mind is more open than most. The psychic paper is able to make an amalgam of what you expect to see, and what I want you to see. I guess there was a glitch in the system somewhere. The only other human being on whom it _hasn't_ worked is William Shakespeare."

"Seriously?" Hodgins asked with a childish grin, rather more loudly than he might have liked.

"Yeah," the Doctor said, annoyed at the memory. "Told me it was blank, the cheeky Bard."

"You've met Shakespeare? Holy crap! Who else?"

"Dr. Hodgins, much as I'd love to run down my adventures with you, we really don't have the time," the Doctor said. "Maybe sometime over tea, eh?"

"Sure, sure," Hodgins conceded, shaking it off. "So... don't keep me in suspense. Did you find anything? What were you doing with the sonic screwdriver?"

"Well, I think you might be just the man to be at my right-hand on this. One of your degrees is in botany, yeah?"

"Yeah."

"Have you ever studied wood spores?"

"Of course."

"Have you ever studied wood spores from other planets?"

* * *

Booth, Brennan, Sweets and Angela had returned to Brennan's office, while Cam went to find the stranger. Booth had recognized the man on the screen as the man from the crime scene, with reasonable certainty, and had gotten immediately on the horn to verify his ties to Scotland Yard.

Cam returned to the room with Hodgins and the interloper in tow.

"Agent Booth!" the man said excitedly. "Oh, lovely, now the whole gang is here!"

"All right, listen, pal," said Booth. "I checked you out with Scotland Yard, and they don't have any record of an agent named _John Smith_, who matches your description, and they definitely haven't heard of anyone being sent to the States to work on a possible murder that occurred in FBI jurisdiction. Also, I saw you yesterday at the crime scene, which is just really freakin' suspicious. So you'd better start talking right now, beginning with how you got fake Scotland Yard credentials, or you're under arrest."

"Okay, okay, fair enough," said the stranger, hands raised in disarmed fashion. "I'm not who I said I am, but..."

"Maybe you'd better let me," Hodgins said, stepping forward, spreading his arm across the Doctor's chest gently.

The Doctor was taken aback, but let Hodgins do the talking, for now.

"I think we should trust this man," said Dr. Hodgins. "I know a little bit about him - I've known of his existence for years - and I think he can help us. I know he can. But in order for him to do that, you all are going to have to lay your egos on the table and open up your minds a little bit. Do you think you can do that?"

"Okay, what are you talking about, Hodgins?" asked Booth, clearly annoyed.

"Look, Booth, you're a man of faith," reasoned Hodgins. "So am I, after a fashion. You and I, we both believe that there is life and phenomena beyond what we can see right in front of us. Wouldn't you agree?"

"I'm a Catholic. You're a nutball conspiracy theorist. I'd hardly call us kindred spirits."

"Nevertheless, you and I, we have something very fundamental in common there, we're just cut from a different cloth, that's all. Cam, you're a reasonable woman. You know that the world isn't just black and white. It's not all just science and not-science. There are things in-between, grey areas, things we cannot see, or just haven't learned about yet. And Angela... I know I can count on you..."

"Maybe," Angela said. "But first you have to tell us what the hell is going on!"

"I'm called the Doctor," said the man in the suit, stepping forward. He was very earnest "Just... the Doctor... which, in and of itself, people tend to find strange. But, well, as you may have guessed, I don't exactly operate within normal channels. I'm an investigator, yes, but I'm not Scotland Yard. I know loads and loads about science, I'd wager, more than everyone in this room put together, but no, I don't have any degrees from any university you'd have heard of."

"Doctor..." Cam tried.

"Please let me finish, Dr. Saroyan. I'm coming clean, here, okay?" the Doctor told her gently, knowing that _coming clean _was something that might win her over, with her law-enforcement background. "I know what I'm talking about, and you would do very well to trust me, and let me help you. I know how Charles Hasbrook died, but when Dr. Hodgins talks to you about faith, and asks you to lay your egos on the table, there is a reason for it. What he is trying to say is that, when I tell you the truth, your hard-science minds will resist it. But you have to allow yourselves to entertain what I'm saying, or we are all going to die trying to solve this case."

"Doctor..." Sweets now tried in his turn.

"I'm not delusional, Dr. Sweets," said the Doctor, evenly. "At least not about who and what I am, and not about Charles Hasbrook's death."

Hodgins came forward again. "He's told me the truth, you guys, and it's amazing! It will blow your minds!"

"I can't believe what I'm hearing," Brennan muttered, annoyance rising in her voice. "Why are we even listening to this?"

"No, Bones, let them say what they have to say," said Booth, curious now as to how much _faith _he could and would actually put into whatever Hodgins and the Doctor had to say.

"May I do the honors?" Hodgins asked the Doctor.

"Please," conceded the Doctor.

"All right, I have looked at wood spores a million times over in my life, and I am an expert in botany. But until today, I never realized, it never even _occurred _to me how limited my expertise actually is. And do you know why? Because my expertise is limited to _this planet_!"

Brennan burst out laughing, without compunction, without hiding her derision.

Hodgins glared at her with annoyance, but kept talking. "There is a species of parasite, a microorganism that lives in wood spores on just about every planet in the universe, only on Earth they are relatively uncommon. And they are carnivorous. They travel in packs, in swarms, and when a few billion of them come together, they can strip flesh from bone. Cleanly, quickly, efficiently, leaving no traces."

Dr. Brennan was laughing again. "This man feeds you campfire legends from faraway planets, and you believe him?"

Hodgins put his hands on his hips. "Okay then, Dr. B. How did the victim become skeletonized in a matter of a few days with no sign of decomp or damage to the bones?"

"I don't know, but it's not a swarm of parasitic microorganisms!"

The Doctor stepped toward her. "How can you be so sure?"

"I am a scientist," she shot at him squarely.

"So am I," Hodgins said. "But being a scientist does not mean our minds are closed. I know, Dr. Brennan, I _know_ that there are things in this world that cannot be explained with our science, and if you can't accept that, then... I feel sorry for you. I do."

She was smirking now, crossing her arms over her chest.

For a long moment, everyone in the room just looked at each other, and wondered who would break the silence.

Finally Cam said, "Hodgins, when you say you know about this man, what do you mean?"

"I mean, his presence can be felt all over the internet. I mean, if you look hard enough, you can see his involvement throughout history in..."

"Dr. Hodgins," the Doctor whispered. "Best not."

Hodgins sighed. "There are numerous online groups devoted to him, his history, sightings, thoughts, words and deeds... and the stories are consistent."

Cam was not convinced.

Hodgins tried again. "Dr. Saroyan, I have done exemplary work for you. I have done nothing but give my all, to maintain the reputation of the Jeffersonian, and find out who murdered individuals who can no longer speak for themselves. You must know on some level that you can trust me. I'm telling you: I know who the Doctor is, and I know enough to put my confidence in him."

"Via conspiracy theories," Brennan commented mockingly. "And chat rooms."

Cam put up a hand, non-verbally asking Dr. Brennan to silence herself. Then she said, "Booth, what do you think?"

He was staring the Doctor in the eye carefully, with scrutiny, with curiosity. "I think there are more things in Heaven and Earth," he said. "But I still don't trust this guy."

"What would you do if you were me?" she asked.

"The cop in me wants to haul him out of here. The man of faith wants to hear what he has to say."

"I'm with you there. Plus, there's a scientist in me who wants answers, and we are really short on those, without his help," she thought aloud. "Angela?"

"I want to pull out a bowl of popcorn and find out how this turns out," she answered. "Oh, and also, I agree with Booth on the _more things in Heaven and Earth_ front."

"Sweets?"

"Harmless. Knowledgeable. Surrounded by security guards and law-enforcement," Sweets shrugged.

Cam stared at the man in the blue suit for some time before announcing, "Doctor, if you're here to jerk us around in any way, I will have you for breakfast."

"Understood," he answered.

"Knowing that I will see you imprisoned for obstruction of justice if it turns out you are lying to us about _anything_, do you still wish to proceed with aiding us in the investigation?"

"No question."

"Hodgins, I'm holding you responsible for any damage or derailment."

"Fine," Hodgins nodded.

"All right. What's our first step?" asked Cam.

The Doctor took a deep breath and responded, "Make the entire facility as bright as possible. Turn on every light you have, at full-pelt. Then, we'll need to push all moveable pieces of furniture to the periphery of the rooms and do our best to form a perimeter of meat."

For a few long moments, everyone just looked at the Dotor, blinking with confusion.


	5. Chapter 5

**So, this chapter is pretty weird - hope it's good weird. Enjoy!**

**But leave a review - let me know what you're thinkin!**

* * *

**Chapter 5**

Only Angela and Brennan were left in the latter's office, as everyone else had gone into the lab area to follow the Doctor's advice. The two of them had already turned on every possible light in the room, and now, they were grasping opposite ends of the sofa.

"On three?" Angela said. "One, two, three!"

With that, they each lifted their end a few inches off the floor and moved it against the wall, as the Doctor had counseled.

"Why are we doing this?" asked Brennan, exasperated.

"Because when we went up a creek, someone came along with a paddle," Angela reasoned. "Or at least a long stick. I know the reasons seem far-fetched, but it's all we've got right now. And at least this _Doctor_ is now acknowledging that he isn't who he said he was, that's a plus. Makes me feel a little bit better, since he's willing to admit that."

"It's madness!"

"Sweetie, all we're doing is giving him a chance."

"Based on what evidence?" Brennan half-yelled, half-whined.

"When are you going to learn? Not everything is about hard data, Brennan. Hodgins has some prior knowledge, and thinks the Doctor is on the up-and-up and knows something about this case. Sweets doesn't think he's a threat. These people are experts, right? You'd want them to trust _you_ wouldn't you? Anyway, hopefully, at worst, all this Doctor will do is waste our time."

"Our time is valuable..."

"Brennan, Cam is in charge, and she made the call, okay? There's no more work we can do on that skeleton without the Doctor's help, so just... roll with it. Have a drink, if you have to. Find a way to be okay with all this. Fighting against it isn't going to do anyone any good. We're a team, we work as a unit, a body, and you're kind of out-voted here."

* * *

The two women filed into Angela's office and repeated the process, then joined their cohorts on the forensic platform a few minutes later. Sweets and Booth had apparently safeguarded the bone room by turning on all possible lights and pushing all furniture against the wall. Hodgins and the Doctor had overseen and helped with the process in the lab and in Hodgins' "ookie room."

The Doctor opened his mouth to speak, presumably to impart instruction for the next step, but he was interrupted by the large sliding doors at the end of the lab. Cam came through them with two men in tow, both of whom were wearing uniforms from the Jeffersonian's cafeteria. Each of the three was pushing a large cart, heaped high with various things wrapped in white paper, cellophane and different kinds of factory packaging.

"What the hell is all that?" Hodgins wanted to know.

"It's meat," Cam said with a sigh. "Everything the Jeffersonian's cafeteria had."

"This is wonderful. Thank you," the Doctor said quite seriously to the men.

"Yeah, well, Dr. Saroyan didn't give us a choice," one of them replied. "She commandeered our meat." The two of them sniggered like teenagers.

"I'll speak to your supervisor in the morning about how we'll make the departmental budgets balance," she said. "Just get online now and start re-ordering for the morning rush."

"Sure thing," the other cafeteria worker replied with a sarcastic salute. "Anything else?"

Cam dismissed them, and turned to the Doctor. "Now what?"

"Now, we create our perimeter of meat," he said. He planted both feet far apart, crossing his arms, trying to keep from moving, pacing. "The microscopic creatures we are dealing with are called the Vashta Nerada. They live in the shadows - it's how they hunt. That's why we put all of the furniture at the sides of the room, to minimize the presence of incidental shadows. That way, if the Vashta Nerada get on the move, it will be easier to see the swarm advancing. Now, as I told you, they strip flesh down to nothing in no time flat, so we'll need to put meat around the shadow perimeters. That means near to, or under, the furniture. As close to the shadows as possible, but not _in_ the shadows. If something is consumed, we will hear it, and we will know that we are being hunted."

"Holy crap," Angela commented.

* * *

The Doctor had insisted that it was too dangerous to split up the group with the Vashta Nerada on the loose, and lurking in such a seemingly innocuous place as a random shadow. More eyes meant more safety.

So the whole group, all seven, shuttled to the Medico-Legal lab's staff kitchen to raid packed lunches in the fridge. Angela pulled a brown paper sack, and said, "This apparently belongs to Dr. Marshall. He's got... a ham sandwich, an apple and a packet of something called Pirate's Booty."

"Extract the ham," the Doctor told her.

"Put it in here," said Hodgins, coming forward with a clear, gallon-sized Ziploc bag.

Booth pulled his stack of index cards from his breast pocket and wrote a quick note.

"What are you doing?" Brennan asked him.

"I'm writing an IOU, and an apology," he said, annoyed. "You don't just manhandle someone's sandwich and steal the ham out of it with no explanation, and without bothering to replace it."

Brennan shrugged, and went back to sulking over the whole situation. Nevertheless, she and Cam kept a close eye on the shadows as the Doctor had instructed. Brennan's gut instinct was to believe the Doctor was not completely sane and that his theory about this _Vashta Nerada_ was off the rails entirely. But much as when she debated over the merits of spirituality with Booth, she got stuck in her internal argument when she realized that she could not prove the non-existence of something, which, technically, left open the possibility of its existence.

She hated this, absolutely hated it. She was a _scientist_, for God's sake, not a ghost-chaser. But that niggling bit of room, of possibility...

Plus, everyone else seemed to be on-board with it, and what was she to do? Stand over Charles Hasbrook's bones for another two hours by herself, getting nothing, while her colleagues did something proactive, albeit a bit ridiculous?

Sweets reached into the fridge and extracted two lunch pouches with shoulder slings. "Let's see... okay, half a leftover McDonald's hamburger, fruit salad, a pudding cup and some gum. Who puts gum in the fridge?"

"Never mind, Sweets," Booth sighed, ripping an index card in half and handing him the new note he had written. "Just get the burger and leave him a note."

"Why'd you rip it in half?"

"Because I'm writing everything twice. We leave one as an IOU for the person we're stealing from, and keep a copy for ourselves so the Jeffersonian can reimburse everyone."

"For two ounces of ham?" asked Angela cynically. "For half a Happy-Meal?"

"It all adds up, Angela," Both reminded her.

The Doctor said with a smirk, "Very scrupulous, Agent Booth."

"Scrupulous is my job, all right?" Booth snapped.

"All right," Sweets echoed, dropping the half burger patty in Hodgins' Ziploc, and replacing the pouch with the note inside. "Next we have... hmm, some string cheese, watermelon wedges, and... bingo! Beef jerky!"

When they had extracted all the meat they could from this room, they proceeded up to the Anthropology suite's kitchenette to see what they could scavenge. Hodgins' Ziploc was soon half-full of lunch meat, beef jerky, Slim Jims, messy clumps of chicken salad, the odd leftover chicken leg or piece of steak.

On their way up the mahogany stairs from the Egyptian Studies department to the office of the Director of Ancient Languages (who Angela reported had a personal mini-fridge), Cam hung back and caught up with the Doctor.

"Listen, I'm pretty much on-board here, but... can I just ask? What's your objective? I mean, I get that by shoving the shadows to one side and creating a meat perimeter, we can sort of contain the organism, and that's a _big _'sort of'," Cam said to him. "But once we do that, what are you planning to do? Stand around in the lab until they go away?"

"I'm planning to examine the bones again," the Doctor told her.

"For what purpose?" Brennan asked, stopping on the step and turning to face the Doctor. "I oversee those remains and I need to know what your intentions are."

"If I can discern an eating pattern, I might be able to work out which strain or sub-species of Vashta Nerada we're dealing with. From there, I might be able to work out what, if anything, they're doing, what they want, maybe even what they'll do next."

"How will you discern an eating pattern?"

"The Vashta Nerada will have left microscopic scores on the bones."

"I've already checked for microscopic scoring, markings, anomalies of any sort. I found nothing."

"I'm going to use a high-powered microscope."

Brennan scoffed. "The microscopes we use at the Jeffersonian are state-of-the-art, and we found nothing!"

"I mean high, HIGH-powered, Dr. Brennan," he said, growing weary of her resistance to his every move and suggestion. He pushed past her and proceeded up the stairs, where the others were now waiting for them on the landing.

"I don't know what that means," she protested, climbing the stairs after him.

"I have a device that will augment the microscope's power," he snapped, trying hard not to snap.

"Augment its power?" she asked. "These microscopes reside at the edge of what is possible, Doctor."

"Dr. Brennan," Hodgins interjected, speaking delightedly. "The Doctor is not bound by the frontiers of what is possible, not as you know them."

"Oh, boy," the Doctor muttered, before Brennan could utter another protest.

"What?" asked Cam, very attuned to what the Doctor was doing. She whirled around, and found him standing on the landing a few steps below her, peering out a window that was about five feet wide and perhaps three stories high.

"Take a look outside," he said. "Tell me what's wrong with this picture."

Everyone attempted to gather around the window. The view opened upon the Jeffersonian's north end. There was a long strip of concrete walkway, bordered on the right by a parking lot, and bordered on the left by a row of street lamps. Behind the street lamps there was a row of trees, roughly the same height as the lampposts.

"Whoa. Now, that's just odd," Booth said. He turned to Cam. "Don't you think that's odd?"

"It sure is," Cam agreed.

"Oh!" even Brennan said, startled.

"I don't see anything wrong," said Sweets.

"Seriously?" asked Angela. "You don't see it? Look at where the trees are, in relation to the streetlights and the shadows."

"Yeah, okay," Sweets conceded. Then after a moment, he saw it. "Oh! Holy crap!"

"I know, right?" Angela said, a little creeped out, and unconsciously grabbing onto Sweets' arm.

Because in spite of the fact that the lamps were _between_ the trees and the concrete walkway, there was a shadow cast across the pavement, distinctly tree-shaped. There was a giant shadow where a shadow had no right to be.

"Is that them?" asked Cam. "Is that the Vashta Nerada?"

"Yep," said the Doctor. He turned away from the window, and stared at a spot that was over everyone's head in the distance.. "We've been taking precautions for small cells, little swarms, lurking in the corners. I wasn't prepared for anything like this."

He turned abruptly and stared out the window again. Cam came up beside him. "What are we looking at? What kind of damage should we prepare for?"

"A swarm that size could strip everyone in this building of all of their flesh in a matter of a minute or two," he told her.

"Okay, well, that's damage enough," she sighed.

The Doctor buried both hands in his hair and gritted his teeth. "This isn't right. What's it doing? What does it want?"

"Is it sentient?" asked Sweets.

The Doctor rounded on him. "What did you say?"

"The swarm, the Vashta Nerada, is it sentient?"

"Yes," said the Doctor. "It is. A group of them can think like a single organism."

"And it can hear and see?"

"Yes."

"Well, if we assume that its instincts are like any other thinking, hearing, seeing organism, its first priority is its own survival," said Sweets. "Does it know it's been found out, and that the crew at the Jeffersonian is trying to fight it?"

"I'd say it probably does," the Doctor mused.

"Okay, look," said Booth. "This is like any other situation where there's a group of thugs encroaching upon a stronghold."

"Are you saying we should treat this like a zombie apocalypse?" Hodgins said, with a twinkle in his eyes.

Booth rolled his eyes. "No, I'm saying we need to figure out how _much_ of a threat there is. Is there just this one big shadow-cloud thing, or are there more? What are their resources? What is their weakness?"

"Their weakness is that they move slowly," said the Doctor. "Their resource... well, the fact that they can kill you in a split second and no one will hear you scream. Does that count?"

"Ugh," Angela groaned.

"Okay, are we surrounded?" asked Booth.

"Only one way to find out," said the Doctor. "Let's split up and check in the other three cardinal directions of the Jeffersonian. This is the north. We need to see what's happening on the south, east, and west sides."

"I thought you said we shouldn't split up," Cam pointed out.

"Based on recent events, Dr. Saroyan, I'm willing to bet that the Vashta Nerada are not in the building in the dark corners just yet. But they will be. One partner watches for rogue shadows, though, just in case, the other partner looks out the window, assesses the situation. Both eyes open, brains alert. Report back to the lab in fifteen minutes, yeah?"

The group agreed. All except Dr. Brennan who was still a pillar of incredulity and stubbornness. Booth put his arm around her. "You're with me, baby," he teased with a big smile.

"Fine," the Doctor said. "Booth and Brennan, you take the east wing. Dr. Saroyan, you go with Dr. Hodgins to the south. Angela and Sweets... west."

"What are _you_ going to do?" asked Booth.

"I'm going back to the lab to amp up those microscopes, see if I can isolate a strain or species."

"Wait, wait," Sweets said. "You said their only weakness is that they move slowly?"

"It's the only one I know of."

"Isn't there a way to exploit that?" Sweets wondered.

"That's true," said Angela. "Isn't that why we ask the question? What's their weakness? How can we exploit it?"

"And can they be killed?" asked Booth.

"I don't kill," said the Doctor. "I only... well, incapacitate."

"Okay. Can they be incapacitated?"


	6. Chapter 6

**It's just gonna get weirder! Hope you enjoy! **

**And hey, drop me a line, tell me what you're thinking. It makes it so much easier and more fun to keep writing!**

* * *

**Chapter 6**

By the time Brennan and Booth reached the bone room where the Doctor had been working, all of the others had returned. The mood in the room was grim.

"What? What's wrong?" asked Brennan.

"Well, unless you tell us that there isn't giant swarm outside the east wing, we are surrounded," said the Doctor.

"There's a giant swarm outside the east wing," Booth reported reluctantly.

There was a barely-audible, collective groan.

Cam went directly to the phone and picked it up, dialing an extension. Everyone waited to see what she would say.

"Hi, Harry," she said. "Yeah, thanks. Listen, will you please post a security guard at each window on the landings of the north, south, east and west wings? Give them my portable extension, and tell them to call me when they get there. I'll instruct them as to what to do next."

There was a long pause, and then Cam said, "It's a long story. If I live to tell about it, I'll give you the whole scoop sometime over coffee. Yep. Thanks." Then she cut off the call.

"Okay. What do we do now?" Sweets asked the Doctor.

"Well, the last time I dealt with the Vashta Nerada, I was able to reason with them," said the Doctor.

"How?" asked Cam.

"It combined its consciousness with... well, for lack of a better, less confusing, way to put it, a human voice. I asked it just to give us time to get out of its way, then it could have the run of the planet."

"The planet?" Brennan asked, before she could stop herself.

"Yes, the planet," said the Doctor. "Don't worry, it wasn't a well-inhabited planet. Anyway, I don't think that's going to work this time."

"Why not?" asked Angela.

"Because," said Sweets, cutting across the Doctor's answer. "If they are surrounding the Jeffersonian because they know that _we_, or more accurately, _you_ are looking to take them down, then reason won't matter. It wants to kill us. You."

"Great," she sighed.

"Taking a very good stab at extra-terrestrial psychology there, Dr. Sweets. I think you might be right. But also, it won't work because..." he said, turning on the screen for everyone to see. "...I have found microscopic scoring on the bones, indicating a bite pattern. I've identified the strain, and it is not the same sub-species that I dealt with before. I don't know _much _about the different sub-species - I'm still learning - but I know that this one is _mean_. Like actually malevolent. The ones I met before before, they were just hungry, just doing what they do. These actually probably _want_ to kill us, for their own survival, yes, but also perhaps for sport. For the hunt."

"How..." Dr. Brennan was asking, drifting forward toward the screen, unconsciously reaching out with one hand. "I scoured these bones!"

"I told you," said the Doctor. "I have an instrument that augments almost anything." He actually showed her the sonic screwdriver, but she wasn't paying attention.

She frowned and seemed to inspect the skeleton itself, just with her eyes. "It's the same skeleton, I'm sure of it! How are you doing this?"

The Doctor sighed. "Blimey, it's like talking to a lump of clay... that has turned to rock."

"Yep, sometimes," agreed Booth.

Brennan didn't hear either one of them.

"Doctor, I'm having a thought," said Sweets.

"Undoubtedly," said the man in pin-stripes. "Thrill me, Dr. Sweets."

"Do the Vashta Nerada know you?"

"Me?"

"Yes, if they're thinking, seeing, hearing, feeling, scheming..."

"Then, they _must _know you," Hodgins exclaimed. "You're famous! You've got to be, like, the scourge of the alien underworld!"

"I suppose," the Doctor conceded. "I try to keep a low profile."

"Yeah, well, you fail," Hodgins dismissed. "The question is, do they know you're here?"

Before the Doctor could answer, the portable phone on Cam's hip rang. "Hi, who's this?" she asked, answering the phone. The person on the other end seemed to answer, then she said, "All right, thanks for calling. I want you to listen carefully, and don't ask questions. Are you standing in front of the window on the landing? Do you see an anomalous shadow outside, like a big black _area_ where a shadow doesn't belong? Okay, keep watching it. If it moves at all, let me know. I mean _at all_. Yes, I'm serious. Please call the other three sentries and have them do the same thing. This is life and death, do you understand? Thank you."

When she finished, she gestured for the conversation to continue.

"Well, I was thinking, if they know you, can they see you? If you made yourself known to them, what would happen?"

"I don't know," the Doctor said, with wide eyes. "And I kind of don't want to find out."

"Would they move faster or more slowly, if they knew you were here?" asked Angela.

"If they know you, and they're smart, they'll get the hell out of Dodge," Hodgins said.

"But if they want to kill me, they'll start advancing faster and they'll consume everyone in their path to get to me," the Doctor argued. "So, on that note, Agent Booth has asked a very good question: can the Vashta Nerada be incapacitated? Preferably incapacitated, swept into a dustbin, and then transported to their ancestral planet before they can eat us."

"I might have an idea about that, but I wouldn't know how to deploy it," said Hodgins.

"What's your idea?" the Doctor wondered.

"_Galernia marginata."_

"Mushrooms?" asked the Doctor. "It's a nice idea, but Galerinas would kill them. I want to try and avoid that if at all possible."

"Why?" Angela asked, incredulous.

"Because it's what I do. Killing is not my thing. Not as a rule anyway."

"Didn't you tell me that these things hitch rides in wood spores on just about every planet? Galerinas are wicked common, and grow especially at the bases of trees. The Vashta Nerada would have lived in close proximity to the Galerinas... wouldn't that give them some kind of leg-up? Like, the mushroom is still poisonous to them, but not deadly?" Hodgins reasoned.

The Doctor looked at Hodgins for the first time with a crooked-browed skepticism. "Maybe. Possibly, Dr. Hodgins. It's not out of the realm of..."

"I mean, assuming that these things act like any other flesh-eating microscopic organism, it wouldn't be hard to find something to kill them. But if all you want to do is incapacitate them, then this is our best bet: something they've had some exposure to. The Jeffersonian has an ample stash of the stuff, all clean and labeled, and _in my own lab_. We wouldn't even have to go to pharmacology to find it."

"That's assuming that these particular swarms have been cooling their heels on this particular planet - I mean, if they had heels. Galerinas only grow here. We'd have to run some tests, and we can't do that without..."

"Okay, what about Psilocybin?"

The Doctor's jaw dropped, and he couldn't help but smile. "Psilocybin? Shrooms? Actual... wait, you want to get the Vashta Nerada stoned?"

"Why not? I've got samples of those in my ookie room as well," Hodgins said, reverting to his giddy, excited air. "Always wondered when I'd have occasion to break those babies out!"

"Actually, that's not a bad idea," said Cam. "If you're looking to incapacitate, but not kill. If all we have to go on is what we know of Earthly creatures, and the Doctor's somewhat... _fragmented_ knowledge of the Vashta Nerada..."

"Do you think if we get them high and disorient them, maybe give them little sub-microscopic hallucinations, it will buy us time?" Sweets asked the Doctor, excitedly.

The Doctor sighed. "I have no idea. I'm not willing to risk all of your lives to find out."

"If you think about it logically," Brennan chimed in, to everyone's surprise. "Psilocybin's influence, or in the vernacular, _tripping_, causes distorted perception of time and slowed motor function. If these _beings _react in the way that every other organic thing on this planet would react, then it _would_, in fact, buy us time. We might be able to slip past or through the malevolent shadows before the organisms notice, or think to feed."

"Dr. Brennan, have you seen or experienced just how quickly a healthy Vashta Nerada swarm can strip a body of its flesh?" the Doctor asked, leaning forward, hands in pockets.

"I have not."

"Then I invite you to extract that rotisserie chicken we found in the guard's lounge from its bag, and toss it out into the night. I think you'll find that even with motor function slowed by half or three quarters, it still would feel like the blink of an eye to us."

"Listen, Doctor," Cam said. "You know what you said to us before about how we had no other options, so we might as well go with the one and only thing that offered any solution? Well, I'm about to say that to you. Unless you've got a better idea, let's go with the 'shrooms."

"I hate to say it, Doctor, but I think she's right," offered Angela.

The Doctor looked contemplative. He paused slightly before saying, "Yes."

"Yes, what?" asked Cam.

"Yes, we go with the 'shrooms plan," he said. "But not because they'll slow up enough to let us walk past them without killing us dead in less than two seconds. But because... it just might make them temporarily stupid."

"Stupid?" asked Sweets.

"Yeah," the Doctor shrugged. He sauntered toward the table against the wall, that held Charles Hasbrook's skeleton, then back again. "That was actually a pretty brilliant idea, Dr. Hodgins. The Vastha Nerada... okay let's assume they know me. They know what I look like, what I do, what I'm capable of, and why I'm here. If that's so, then they've done their homework. Either that, or there's some kind of psychic field that links up all of the swarms and species across the galaxies... which actually seems the more likely scenario, so forget what I said about homework, eh? Anyway, if they know me, then they also know my TARDIS."

"Your what?" Agent Booth wanted to know.

"The TARDIS," Hodgins said. "It's his spaceship thing."

"You have a spaceship?" Booth asked with a smirk.

"Yes, I do," the Doctor answered quickly, still pacing, making no eye-contact. "Smirk all you want, won't make it not-true. It's the one thing about me that has stayed outwardly the same since... well, since the beginning. They couldn't know about me and not know the TARDIS. So, that begs the question, with a sentient species, as Dr. Sweets pointed out, seeing, hearing and feeling, how the hell would I ever get them aboard the TARDIS to bring them home, unless they were incredibly stupid? They'd never fall into a trap like that, unless..."

By the time the Doctor reached this point, his eyes were wide and maniacal and his teeth were bared a bit. It was a side of himself that he'd been careful not to show these people, as they didn't much trust him as it was. But he was onto something, and he was excited, thanks to Jack Hodgins.

"Oh yes!" he continued. "I'll be able to get them out of here, out of Washington, off this planet, into their own domain, and no one else has to die! Not even _them_! Oh, you people are _beautiful!"_

"Okay," said Dr. Brennan, suddenly deciding that her word counted in this matter. "I think it's a good plan."

"One question," Booth said. "If these things aren't stupid, and they only eat flesh, how do we get them to take 'shrooms?"

"I think I know," said the Doctor, looking at each person in the room, in turn, with darkened eyes. "And it's going to take all of us."

"Erm, I have a question too," said Angela. "What do we do with all that food we stole? Do you still want us to make a meat perimeter?"

"No," the Doctor told her. "I have other plans for it now."


	7. Chapter 7

**This is a short chapter, but it's kinda mysterious and fun... I hope. Anyway, enjoy it! And as usual, please leave me a comment. :-)**

* * *

**Chapter 7**

"I am _so_ getting fired for this," Angela said as she hacked past a password she shouldn't know to light up a screen she shouldn't be able to. She and Dr. Sweets were back in the surveillance room, darkened, now with thirteen screens fully up and running. Virtually every corner of the Jeffersonian, including all gardens, parking lots and grounds, were visually accessible to her with the click of a mouse.

"What's the big deal?" Sweets said, leaning back in the chair next to her. "Cam's the one who told the guards to go home. If anyone asks, she'll go to bat for you."

"Yeah, I hope you're right," she said. Changing the subject suddenly, she asked, "Are you really six-foot-one?"

"Yes. Why?"

She turned and looked him up and down. "Hm," she shrugged. "I guess I always thought of you as a kid."

He sighed with exasperation. "Why does everyone see me as a kid? Over time, I've more than proven..."

"Sweets, relax," she chuckled. "It's a good thing. When you stop getting carded, you'll long for _the days_, trust me."

They were silent for a few minutes while Angela did as the Doctor had asked, and inspected the far corners of the Jeffersonian for out-of-place shadows. She had a good eye, and didn't see anything untoward. Sweets had a less-good eye, but he tried to help. She assessed that _any_ route to an outside exit would be fine for the Doctor and Booth to take, but she decided to direct them toward the south, to the museum patrons' entrance. The tourists' terra-cotta-floored lobby, with its grand, steep staircases, two-hundred-year-old grey brick and six-story-high glass ceiling had a kind of grandiose poetry about it, ideal for the macabre ruse they were going to perpetrate.

"Why did the Doctor want to know your height, anyway?" she asked.

"Booth said there were only four sets of body armor," Sweets answered, distractedly staring at the screens, not realizing that he wasn't really answering the question at all.

* * *

Brennan and the Doctor were making their way down one of the dusty grey hallways that ran between the Medico-Legal lab and the Archaeology/Anthropology research bays. Part of the Anthropology bay was the gigantic, cavernous bone-storage room, where the remains of thousands of individuals rested in labeled drawers, waiting to be identified.

"Do you really know as much about human bones as you say?" she asked him. For the first time since he arrived, she sounded something other than hostile.

"I do," he said. "Sorry. Does it help to know that I'm not human myself? So you still know more about bones than any other human being."

She smiled in spite of herself. "How are you not human?"

"I'm just not," he said. "Born on a different planet."

She looked at him with a whimsical smile that let him know she thought he was completely nuts.

"It's okay, you don't have to believe me," he said. "But if you want, when this is all over, assuming I survive, I'll prove it to you."

"Well, then," she let out a puff of exasperation and then stopped in her tracks to face him. "What are we doing this for?"

"Come again?" he asked, having stopped to face her as well.

Without warning, she reached forward and squeezed his shoulder. He was surprised, and looked at her hand on him with a questioning frown, but he didn't say anything or try to pull away.

She boldly reached forward with the other hand and slid it inside his suit jacket up to his other shoulder, and he could then see that she was feeling his bones. Her fingertips traced and probed all the way across his clavicle, then down the sternum, stopping where bone gave way to guts. He studied her face as she did this, and it revealed nothing except deadly seriousness.

She reached around with both hands and felt for bones around the back of his neck, then moved them forward to press at his jaw.

She stepped back and looked him over. "I'd have to examine you fully to know for sure, but I'd say that your skeletal structure is humanoid."

"My skeletal structure is identical to a human's," he replied. "All 206 bones are there, including the inner ear. It's my organs that don't quite match up."

She wrinkled her nose and said, "I don't want to know what that means." And she turned on her heel and made her way further down the hall.

"No, no, I didn't mean..." he called after her nervously, but she was already on the move, and probably didn't care anyway. He chuckled to himself and followed her through a set of double doors into the largest room full of sterile plastic drawers he had ever seen. Before they'd left the bone room, Angela had told him that some of the Jeffersonian employees called this room "Limbo," where souls are neither alive, nor at rest.

"It's organized by date," Brennan sighed. "So it might be difficult and time-consuming finding one that is congruent with your physiology, especially given the unusual length of your neck. But if anyone can find it, I can." She looked at him to see if he would insinuate himself into that comment, but he did not.

He gestured forward and said, "After you, Dr. Brennan."

* * *

Agent Booth watched as Dr. Saroyan slid a body out sideways from cold storage in the Autopsy Room, also known as her office.

"Are you sure this is all right?" he asked, wincing as she pulled back the white sheet, revealing the man's shattered face. He was partially decomposed, and bits of displaced flesh and body were both still attached and detached from the main trunk.

"Yep," she assured him. "Confirmed suicide. There are two highly-regarded psychiatrists who treated the man as a patient and both have signed sworn statements that the victim was severely depressed and suicidal. And there is surveillance footage of him throwing himself off of the roof of a twelve-story building at three-thirty in the morning. He fell through a sewer grate in an alley - his body wasn't found for four days."

"No-one noticed, even on the footage, for four days?"

"Come on, you know no one watches that stuff unless a diamond goes missing or something. Or unless there's a mysterious death discovered - case in point."

"Yeah, I guess."

"We were going to clean the bones this morning so he could be released to the family, but we got everyone working on the Hasbrook case, and we don't have a squintern at the moment, so... two birds."

"Still..." Booth protested, wincing again, looking at the body with pity. "He's a person. Family, neighbors, a life. And we're going to use him as a prop?"

"We're not using _him_. You don't believe he's still in there any more than I do. We are going to use a dead body, a _shell_, Seeley, to help save our lives, and the lives of everyone in this building," she reminded him, with a humoring smile. "Granted, it's on the word of a potential nutcase, but given what we've seen of Charles Hasbrook's totally-stripped skeleton and the crazy-ass shadows outside... I say, better safe than sorry."

"Okay," he said reluctantly.

"Trust me, Seeley, he won't feel a thing."

* * *

Dr. Jack Hodgins was working remarkably calmly, considering how on-fire his insides were. In order to help _The Doctor_, the alien anomaly he had been following on the internet ever since there _was _an internet, he had taken his entire "stash" of Psilocybin mushrooms and puréed them in a saline solution.

However, as it turned out, his stash had proven not to be as abundant as he had thought. "Could've sworn I had more of these," he said to himself as he poured the 'shroom/saline solution into a beaker, confirming its volume. He made a mental note to scour the surveillance files of his ookie room, just to see if someone had been dipping their hand into the 'shroom jar, as it were. Maybe he could get Angela to help...

In order to make enough psychedelic solution for the Doctor's plan to work, and to give it the correct viscosity, he was going to have to dilute the concoction even more, almost to the point where it wouldn't have much effect. But then again, what did he know about the toxicity constitution of the Vashta Nerada?

"Ah, but!" he said aloud, again with glee. He hadn't been much of a drug-doer, even in his college and grad-school days, but he did know his chemistry pretty well, and he'd been to enough crazy parties to know how to boost the effects of mind-altering drugs.

He opened a large door on a storage unit, containing myriad chemicals that he sometimes used with the squinterns for their experiments. He pulled a rubber stopper out of a four-ounce test tube filled with hemp oil and added it to the solution. This would boost the psychedelic effect, give the solution more volume and viscosity, and its potency would give him more room to add more saline to reach the desired amount for the Doctor's plan.

"Hodgins, you genius, you," he said to himself.


	8. Chapter 8

**Tension is mounting...**

**Please enjoy and review!**

* * *

**Chapter 8**

Cam and Booth moved the suicide victim found in the sewer to a gurney, then pulled some rarely-used embalming tools off a high shelf in a corner cabinet, tucking them beside the body for transport. They left him near the door of the Autopsy Room for easy access, then they grabbed flashlights and headed down to the garage where Booth's black SUV was parked.

From a stakeout two nights before, Booth's trunk had been carrying around FBI-issue body armor for three men and one woman. They had made two trips back up to the lab, Booth hauling heaps of equipment, Cam following closely, watching the shadows and carrying two helmets at a time in one hand. They piled them on the floor of the forensic platform for easy-access, then went in search of a British alien invader, and their own resident bone expert.

Dr. Brennan was standing at the top of quite a tall ladder in "Limbo," with the Doctor at the bottom, very nervously holding it steady.

"Please hurry," he encouraged.

"Why?" she asked nonchalantly. "If I fall and break a bone, you claim to know enough to be able to set it properly."

"Well, I do, yes. But ideally, we would just _avoid_ the falling, and any resultant broken bones," he said.

She ignored him and pulled a drawer out of a very high shelf and yanked the lid off, peering inside. Her sudden moves made his hearts thump a little harder, momentarily. "This one might be congruent, relatively speaking."

"Okay, good, now come down from there," the Doctor said.

"How's it going?" asked Cam with a smirk at the jittery man, as she and Booth approached.

"Slowly," the Doctor sighed, white-knuckling the ladder as Brennan descended, holding a drawer under one arm, grasping the rungs with the other.

"Well, we can't be too careful," said Brennan. "The Doctor isn't just a certain height and basic build - no one really is. As it happens, he has an unusually vertical pelvis and slightly larger cervical vertebrae than most humans."

"Bones, somehow I don't think the Hava Nagilas are going to care," Booth sighed.

"It's Vastha Nerada. And yeah, I've spent the last forty minutes telling her that," the Doctor offered as Brennan reached the last five rungs. She turned and handed him the drawer so she could use both hands to climb down. Along with the drawer, she gave him a dirty look.

The Doctor carried the drawer to one of the exam tables, and pulled out the femur of an adult male. "It _seems_ promising," Brennan commented. "But let's make certain that the skeleton is intact. The last one was missing a scapula, two phalanges and a coccyx."

"How does _that combination _of bones go missing?" Booth wondered.

"Booth, do you want to investigate what happened to the victims in Limbo, or do you want to dispatch these so-called carnivorous shadows?" she asked, her voice having risen slightly in pitch.

"Sorry, Bones," he said, chuckling inside. "Took my eye off the ball for a second."

* * *

Twenty minutes later, all two hundred and six bones of a forty-one-year-old murder victim from somewhere in Eastern Europe, approximately six feet tall, had been laid out anatomically on a chrome table.

"Well?" asked Agent Booth.

"This skeleton still does not have the correct pelvic shape," Brennan answered, moving around behind the Doctor. She placed her hands on his hips and pinched with her index and middle fingers, and thumbs.

"Whoa, what are you doing?" Booth asked her, reaching out. "You can't just _do _that, Bones!"

The Doctor sighed. "She's feeling my iliac crests. A little while ago it was my clavicle and cervical vertebrae. You know, Dr. Brennan, as flirtation goes, I've definitely had worse."

"What?" she asked, distracted and annoyed.

Cam suppressed a smile.

The Doctor addressed Agent Booth. "This is the third time she's done it. It's fine. I'm finding it faster just to humour her."

Brennan ignored them and moved back around to view the skeleton. "No, the pelvis is not similar at all. And the brow ridge is completely non-reflective of the Doctor's physiognomy. This one would be a more accurate surrogate for Booth, actually," Brennan said. Then, she studied the Doctor's face for the millionth time since they'd arrived in Limbo. "No, you clearly have a Northern European cranial shape, and the corresponding eye orbits and nasal-labial combination, suggesting you're descended from the Nordic invaders of Scotland or England, and their native progeny."

"Oi!" he shouted. "I am not the grandchild of British Vikings!"

"It doesn't matter whether you are or not," she said evenly, placating. "The fact is, this man's brow ridge indicates a Ural heritage and you..."

"Bones, do the words _needle in a haystack _mean anything to you? What are the odds you're going to find a skeleton in this room that's fully intact, and has every single quality you're looking for, to match the Doctor's shape?"

"Easily estimable, given the size of this room and current and historical statistics involving Caucasian male victims of..." she began.

"They're slim," Cam said loudly. "The chances are slim. So let's just use this one. Okay? Because we all love your quirky anal retention but frankly, we're on a schedule." She was now looking at Dr. Brennan with a tight, wider-than-necessary smile.

The two men's eye's slid to Brennan's face very carefully, just to see what she would do.

She set her jaw sideways, as she often did when frustrated. "Okay," she said reluctantly. "I just hope Hodgins' concoction of hallucinogenic mold is enough to confuse the organisms into not looking too closely at the skeleton's cranium."

"I hope so too," Cam said, with the same tight smile.

The Doctor started loading the bones back into the drawer, and Dr. Brennan began to help. He looked up at Cam and asked, "Have you come to tell me you found what we need?

"Yep," she answered. "Although, I don't really understand what good body armor is going to do. Microscopic organisms can get into any nook or cranny we can imagine."

"I know," he shrugged. "But a wise woman once pointed out to me that a sealed space-suit makes a _tougher meal _for the Vashta Nerada. 'Course, that was with the mesh concentration dialled up to eight-hundred per cent. But, if we can slow them down with the 'shrooms and put one more tough layer between them and you, then maybe we can give this a go, and not completely die."

"Not _completely _die?" asked Cam, slightly panicked, mostly amused.

"Space suit?" Booth asked, eyebrows and lips cocked.

"He's not from this planet," Brennan clarified with a straight face, straight mouth, and eyes brightly trained on her partner. All three of them looked at her with surprise, unable to tell if she was being serious or sarcastic. They all knew that Dr. Brennan wasn't particularly well-versed in sarcasm, but also was not wont to believe in the far-fetched claims of someone she just met, or for that matter, someone she knows well.

After a pause, the Doctor spoke. "Well, then," he said, replacing the drawer's lid. "Let's load up our cargo."

The phone at Cam's hip rang as they left Limbo and entered the grey stone corridor.

"Yes?" she asked it. There was a pause during which the Doctor, Brennan and Booth could hear the voice of a man on the other end, shouting and frantic. "Okay, okay, calm down, Frank. I need you to be strong, okay? Just stay where you are. Those windows are airtight, you'll be fine. You did the right thing by calling. I'll let you know if you need to get away from there. Just call me again if the pattern changes or they start moving faster, can you do that? Thank you, Frank."

She ended the call. As soon as she did, she received another call of the same type from another guard. As soon as she ended the second call, a third came in. She let it ring for a moment, and sighed, as her heart started to beat just a little faster.

The Doctor was staring at her with an earnest frown. "Shadows on the move?"

Cam nodded. "The guards say they are starting to spread."

* * *

After giving the crew the next update and set of directions, the Doctor began climbing the stairs out of the Medico-Legal lab of the Jeffersonian, with a two-way radio in his hand.

"Angela, can you hear me?" he asked through the device.

"I can, Doctor," she answered. "Where are you?"

"On the steps, headed up to the second floor from the lab."

"Okay, hold on," she said. She paused. Then, "I see you! Wait, why are you alone? Shouldn't you be traveling with a partner?"

The Doctor sighed. It was a very good question that reflected his current life's choices, though Angela thought she was just asking if he should be using the "buddy system" to navigate the shadowy Jeffersonian.

"It's all right, Angela," he told her. "I'm headed up to the roof. I'm not bringing anyone outdoors with me on a night like this. It's too dangerous."

"Oh, you're one of _those_," she said.

"Yes, as it happens, I am," he confirmed. "Anyway, will you _surveille_ a few steps ahead of me so that I don't walk into a shadow that will, you know, end my life?"

"Sure," she told him. "The coast is clear all the way up to the top of the stairs. When you get there, turn left, and you'll see a door with a leaning bar. Go through that door, and it'll put you in a well-lit tourist area. That's the easiest way to get to the roof. You just find the green exit sign and climb."

"Okay," he said. "Here I go."

Angela guided the Doctor all the way up the stairwell to the roof this way, and when he came through the door high above the gardens of the Jeffersonian Institute into a crisp, clear night, he saw the TARDIS, just to his right, exactly where he had left it.

He should have gone straight to it, but he couldn't help himself; he had to see the Vashta Nerada.

He walked to the edge, and peered over.

"Blimey," he muttered to himself. A slightly transparent, charcoal-grey cloud seemed to surround the entire building, like a dangerous patch of factory exhaust. He shuddered, and forced himself to look away, to enter the TARDIS.

He felt daunted. He didn't want to let the crew in the lab know it, but he was wondering how the hell this ruse was going to accommodate a swarm the size of the one he just saw. He briefly considered simply loading everyone into the TARDIS and teleporting them out of there, but that would not solve the problem: there would still be a pissed-off carnivorous swarm, out to get them. And in that case, it would be on the loose in Washington. This way, at least they could keep it contained, focused on them, and not the populace.

But, it was nice to know that a TARDIS escape was an option, should worse come to worse...

The good news was, the shadow seemed to be turning into a cloud as it spread, rather than a denser shadow. That must mean that their forces were suffering somehow; or whatever reason, they were not able to add any troops to the cause, so they were spreading their existing personnel thinner, with not enough units to form a complete abysmal black shroud around the whole Jeffersonian.

The bad news was that this meant that the shadows were closing in, definitely _trying _to metaphorically suffocate the Jeffersonian.

It also meant that if anyone got trapped in the "cloud," they would likely have a slower death, and would _feel _the meat being torn from their bones for a few seconds, rather than having it happen in a painless flash.

This was a possibility that they had intensified, he knew, by deciding to slow them down with hallucinogenics, and to use body armor. Were they really doing the right thing?

He sighed to himself as he set coordinates to move the TARDIS. What _was _the right thing? Was he really wrangling with himself over whether or not to make potential death instantaneous for these people, or whether to give them a chance at a possible mere maiming? How the hell was he supposed to live with choices like this?

In other news, good or bad, this action taken by the Vashta Nerada might confirm what the Doctor had said in the bone room: that the Vashta Nerada probably were all connected by a psychic field. He had sort of known this before, as he knew that a swarm was more or less sentient, and he had seen it mesh its sentience with another sentience, back in the Library, as it spoke with the voices of River Song's dead friends. But thus far, he had had no confirmation that the smaller swarms confer with one another, and could coordinate as a whole. This might be to their advantage, or it might not.

But, he resolved to push forward. The plan they had in motion was the only option now, and it was a good plan that had a realistic chance at working. It's not like he was leading these people into certain death. So, the less the Jeffersonian crew knew about his doubts, the better. He reckoned it was kinder to have them be confident, because the alternative was to do nothing...


	9. Chapter 9

**Chapter 9**

The TARDIS was made up of practically infinite space, in a more or less separate relative dimension from the world around it. Over the last seven centuries, knocking about in this thing, the Doctor had picked up many a human and humanoid companion, and most of them had never even touched nor thought about ninety-eight per cent of the TARDIS' interior.

The thing was, humanoid companions were easy to keep track of. They spoke for themselves, expressed uncertainty and fear, and were sensible enough not to wander too far into unknown territory without at least a compass. The hard part, the part he often forgot about, was the fact that he had also picked up numerous _other_ types of creatures in his travels. This usually happened by accident, or anyway, not of _his_ own accord, except in rare cases. _They _were not always so easy to keep track of, couldn't usually speak for themselves, and as a rule, were not averse to trying to explore the great vessel.

So, in the moment just before stepping out of the TARDIS, he thought of a fluffy grey cat that Rose had brought aboard three years ago when they were visiting Greece. It was a stray, and she'd felt sorry for it, and had convinced the Doctor to let her keep it, mostly by batting her eyelashes and sticking out that formidable bottom lip of hers. She named it Grigio, but the cat had promptly got lost in the labyrinth, and then Rose had promptly got lost somewhere a lot less accessible. He had no idea whether the cat was still alive or not. He had been hoping that it would find some stray mice to entertain and feed itself. Although, today, he was not so sure.

He also thought of Arthur, the horse he himself had allowed on-board when they were dealing with clockwork robots in 18th century France. Rose hadn't wanted the horse on-board with them, but Arthur, like Grigio, had wandered off and got lost in the inner-reaches as well, and there wasn't much they'd been able to do about it. He had heard Arthur's whinny a time or two since then, so he assumed that the horse was around someplace... perhaps he'd found the stables and pasture and was having a great old time of it.

He sighed, and mentally apologised to all the living, fleshy things on-board. He didn't know who to pray to, but he said a silent meditation, and a "godspeed" to any non-humanoid companions that he might leave in the line of fire of the Vashta Nerada.

"It's either this, or risk the Earth," he whispered, willing the TARDIS to hear him and pass along the message.

* * *

Hodgins, Cam, Booth and Brennan stood on the forensic platform with their various props and materials, waiting for the Doctor to return. When he did, they had not expected it to be this way.

Well, Cam, Booth and Brennan had not expected it. Hodgins had.

He watched with a gigantic smile as a blue Police Box materialized right out of thin air, there, where they do their ugly work of identifying weapons, poisons, times-of-death and killers. He couldn't help but laugh out loud and shout "Oh, yes!" as the TARDIS' gears crescendoed and echoed against the high ceilings and wide spaces, then ground down to a halt.

"Oh my God! What the hell is that?" Angela shouted over the walkie-talkie at Booth's belt. She had clearly seen the materialization on the screen she was watching from the surveillance room. In the background, Sweets could be heard half-shouting, half-cackling.

The Doctor opened the door and stepped out.

"The TARDIS!" cried Hodgins. "That's the coolest thing I've ever seen, and I've seen some cool things!"

"How did you do that? This is supposed to be a secure facility!" Cam asked the Doctor, her face contorted in confusion and a kind of feigned anger.

The Doctor rolled his eyes, feeling that she had entirely missed the point, and he ploughed past her, gathering up some of the body armor currently piled on the floor.

"Are these custom-sized for agents?" he asked, inspecting one of the special nylon suits.

"Not really," said Booth. "There's small, medium and large for men, and small, medium and large for women."

"What have we got here?" asked the Doctor.

"Two large men's, one medium men's, and one medium woman's. Plus arm and leg pads, and helmets."

"Okay, well, Dr. Saroyan, you take the women's gear. Dr. Brennan, Dr. Hodgins..."

"Want to do rock-paper-scissors for who gets the medium men's?" Hodgins asked Brennan, walking up close to her and standing to his full height, which was still not quite equal to her height.

"No, you can have it," she said. "I'll be fine in a large men's suit."

"Whatever," the Doctor shrugged. "Whichever one of you takes it, it's going to be ill-fitting."

"Why don't _you_ take it?" asked Hodgins. "You're the right height. I can make do without."

"No," the Doctor insisted.

"I'm just a human scientist," Hodgins said. "You're a Time Lord! If you die, then the universe is..."

"No," the Doctor insisted again. "I'm not discussing it."

Hodgins held up his arms, as if to demonstrate that he was disarmed.

Over the next few minutes, everyone except the Doctor put on an FBI-issue black armored bodysuit, thick with nylon and canvas and a fiberglass core. Booth got into his in just a few minutes, then was obliged to help everyone else who was unaccustomed to the process.

For his part, the Doctor tried to tighten Brennan's gear with the sonic screwdriver, with limited success. He also tried to manipulate the suits' meshes in order to make it harder on the carnivorous little monsters, but this was with no success. The space suits of River Song's crew were made for adjusting the mesh; these were not. The FBI were sophisticated, but they weren't fifty-first century space travellers.

"Now what?" asked Cam, looking down at her black suit and shrugging.

"Now, we board the TARDIS," said the Doctor. "Bring your props."

"We're all going in there?" Brennan asked, pointing at the phone box. "With the materials we've collected? Just the gurney alone will not match the dimensions of..."

"Dr. B.," Hodgins interrupted, putting one hand on her shoulder. "To geekily quote Nike, _just do it_."

Hodgins himself was the first to enter the TARDIS, with a large stoppered beaker of hallucinogenic fluid in his hand. And though he had had some idea of what to expect, the sheer impact stopped him in his tracks just inside the door.

"Wow!" he breathed. "I knew it was going to be... but... oh, wow!"

His eyes slid around the gold-colored console room with its lit-up roundels dappling the walls, and its totally otherworldly control panels. He breathed in and out slowly, his face glossed over with wonder.

"Er, Dr. Hodgins, is there any way you could... you know, move?" asked Cam from behind him.

Absently, Dr. Hodgins stepped to the side and allowed Cam to pass. She was pulling a gurney, covered by a white sheet. On top of the white sheet, there was a set of large syringes and narrow tubes. On the shelf underneath were three very large coolers, the size of army foot-lockers.

At the other end of the gurney, Booth pushed, helping her to guide the laden-down thing into the interior space.

Surprisingly, neither Booth nor Cam said a word. They simply pushed the wheeled mechanism up the ramp to the console platform, to make room for anyone who would enter behind them.

Lastly, Brennan entered the TARDIS, clutching a plastic drawer full of bones. Like Hodgins, she stopped in her tracks. Her mouth dropped open like a mailbox flap. The Doctor came in after her and shut the door.

"All right, Dr. Brennan?" he asked with a bit of a smirk.

"This isn't possible," she declared.

"As you like, love, but I think you're missing one really important fact," the Doctor said.

"What?" she asked.

"Well," he started, suddenly sounding uncomfortable, not really sure what he would say. "Look around. Because... well, just look."

"This is _totally _incongruous, and defies the laws of physics," she told him, annoyed, now turning to face him.

"Wrong," said Hodgins. "It defies the laws of physics _as you know them_."

"The interior space of your vehicle is far superior in volume to that of the exterior!" she shouted at the Doctor.

"Right," he nodded calmly. "Most people just say _it's bigger on the inside,_ but I guess you're not most people, are you? And why are you so irritated?"

"She's got a point, though," Cam piped up. "How the hell does this thing work?"

"No time for that now," the Doctor decided, jogging up the ramp. He undid the handbrake on the console. Then he turned toward Booth. "What about you? Any choice words?"

Booth smiled. "I wouldn't know where to start, my friend!" This was followed by a laugh.

This made the Doctor chuckle. He put a hand on Booth's shoulder, momentarily squeezing. It was a gesture of, _I know how you feel, mate._

"The Time Lord works in mysterious ways, eh, Booth?" Hodgins asked, still standing near the door with Brennan.

"Amen," Booth agreed.

"What's this bag doing here?" asked Brennan, seemingly out of nowhere. "It's FBI-issue, but I didn't see Booth come aboard with it." She was motioning to a black duffel bag by the door, bearing the yellow seal of the Bureau.

"It belongs to Dr. Sweets," said the Doctor. "I'm going to need something to wear, and he's more or less my size."

Brennan nodded, frowning. The Doctor assumed she was accepting the duffel bag scenario, yet still having trouble with the "incongruous" interior of the TARDIS. He couldn't really say he blamed her.

* * *

Before moving the strange vessel out of the Medico-Legal lab, the Doctor figured it would be good to do the "wet" work, just in case they found they needed any other equipment from their offices. Booth moved the three huge coolers out from under the gurney, and Cam uncovered and prepped the body of the suicide victim for arterial embalming.

Meanwhile, Hodgins fussed one more time over the viscosity of the mushroom and hemp oil solution, having once more added a bit of saline, just to make the process slightly quicker.

Then, careful not to let any of the solution touch her skin, in an eerily silent TARDIS, as the whole crew watched, Cam pulled a syringe full from the beaker, then injected the jugular vein. She put the syringe aside, and began to massage the area, attempting to spread the solution throughout the body. She took her time and repeated the process throughout the body, ensuring to the best of her ability that the body's circulatory system was now filled with an hallucinogenic compound.

Dr. Brennan questioned her method a few times, to which Cam promptly replied, "I'm a pathologist, not a mortician. If you think you can do a better job, then be my guest."

The Doctor put his hand on Cam's shoulder and simply whispered, "You're doing fine."

Brennan huffed away, back down the ramp, calling for Booth's help. She opened the plastic drawer and said, "We're going to have to assemble this skeleton in a hurry, and we can't just lay them out like we usually do. I'll need your help to organize all two-hundred-and-six bones, in order to facilitate a rapid assembly."

"Just tell me what to do," he said, shrugging.

When the suicide victim's body was as full of the solution as Cam could make it, and the bones of the Eastern European murder victim were organized into meticulously-named piles, it was time.

The Doctor moved the TARDIS to the middle of the lobby, just inside the front entrance of the museum.

He and Booth walked ceremoniously down the ramp together, while the other three hung back and watched.

"Are you sure you don't want me to do that, Booth?" asked Hodgins.

"I'm sure, Hodgins," Booth replied. "It's just a look-out job. Anyway, you're the squint, I'm the action-hero, remember? If one of us is going to get eaten by a big dark monster, it's going to be me."

"That's absurd," said Brennan, attempting to sound cynical, and not succeeding.

"And yet," Booth said.

"Well, at least let us come and watch!" Hodgins begged.

"No," the Doctor asserted, shutting him down. "You three, you stay inside the TARDIS. There is no need to go out there unless and until absolutely necessary. It is too dangerous, have you got that?"

"Oh yeah, no problem here," Cam answered with an awkward smile.

The Doctor got promises from Brennan and Hodgins as well. Then Cam wished them good luck, and the Doctor and Booth stepped out of the TARDIS, shutting the door behind them.

Booth switched on his flashlight and said, "I've got your back."

Together, they crept toward the front doors, the Doctor moving carefully forward, Booth moving back-to-back with him, casting his flashlight around, as though it were a gun. He scanned the periphery for out-of-place shadows.

"I haven't seen any activity in there, Booth, so you should be good," said Angela over the walkie talkie.

"Thanks," said Booth, distracted. "But I still think I'll do my best to cut my losses."

When they reached the glass doors, the Doctor peered out into an unnaturally dark courtyard. His hearts beat faster at this stage, and he gulped.

"How are we outside the front entrance?" he asked over the walkie.

"You have a little space," said Angela. "I think they've moved forward, but it's so slow, it's hard to tell."

"How much space are we talking about? Two kilometers, three inches, what?"

"I'm going to guess about thirty feet," she told him. "You'll be fine, just... you know, no sprinting."

"Thank you, Angela."

The Doctor very carefully opened one of the doors and stepped out into the cool air of a Washington D.C. autumn night. He faced the giant, malevolent shadow with a scowl. He hoped he _looked_ a lot less terrified than he felt.


	10. Chapter 10

**To the Anonymous reviewer who has asked a couple of times for Rose to appear in this story:**

**Sorry, but there are several practical reasons why Rose will definitely ****not**** be appearing.**

**1. As stated in the author's note before the very first chapter, this story takes place during the 2009 Specials of Doctor Who. At this point, Rose has been exiled to a parallel world... twice. As you must know, the Tenth Doctor chose not to travel with a companion during the last "year" of his life.**

**2. From a storytelling standpoint, it would be suicide. The walls between universes are closed, and for me to take a side-road to explain her presence would be totally inorganic, would interrupt the flow of events and would simply MAKE NO SENSE.**

**3. I am already juggling seven characters! Finding something for all of them to do has been a mighty task as it is, and these are characters who have actual skills, Ph.D's and/or real, formidable areas of expertise. Rose, arguably, has no practical skills. She sometimes couldn't even manage to stand still properly.**

**4. As you may have noticed if you looked over my previous Doctor Who stories, I do not like Rose as we have come to know her, and think that the Tenth Doctor is a much more compelling character without her. If I ship him with someone, it's with Martha. **

**If you're a Ten/Rose shipper, great! Only read something else for your Ten/Rose fix - this isn't your story! :-)**

* * *

**Speaking of shipping, the end of this chapter has a little bit of Booth/Bones sweetness! Awww.**

**Annnnd, on with the show! Enjoy... and review!**

* * *

**Chapter 10**

"Whoa, you guys," Angela's voice sounded over the radio.

"What?" asked Booth, still on-alert.

"The shadows are retreating," she said.

"Are they?" asked the Doctor, still attempting to stare them down. "I can't tell. It all just looks like a big black blob to me."

"Oh, they're moving all right," Sweets assured them. "Wow, that is _wicked_! It's like the big black ring around the Jeffersonian just got wider."

"Well, I'll be damned. Those things can see," Agent Booth mused.

"Of course they can," said the Doctor. "I've seen them stalk prey in airtight suits, and hunt in formation. They rely heavily on vision. Light refraction and interaction of colour... it's all there."

"Weird."

A pause.

"Well, I guess they know me," the Doctor reckoned with a sigh. Then, "Wait, are you sure _the whole ring_ around the Jeffersonian is retreating?"

"Yeah!" Sweets replied.

"Not just the ones that can see me?"

"No, it's all of them. They're terrified of you," Angela assessed. There was another pause, and then Angela reported, "Okay, they've stopped."

"Stopped moving?" asked the Doctor.

"Yep," she said. "They were backing away from you, and now they're still."

"Okay, so they're terrified of you, but just enough to retreat a few feet. Not enough to give up," Booth said.

"Looks like," the Doctor agreed. "Backing away, then stopping? Means time to regroup."

"That's just great. Time to go back inside," Booth announced. "Come on." He grabbed the Doctor by the arm and insisted they re-enter the Jeffersonian.

The Doctor did not resist.

Once inside, the two men sprinted for the TARDIS, as both had a sense that time was now running quite short.

When the Doctor pushed the door of the blue box open, he heard a squeal.

"Ow!"

"Bones, get out of the way," Booth whined. "What the hell are you doing?"

She cleared a path, and the Doctor and Booth entered the TARDIS, the former locking the door behind them.

"Since the Doctor was not willing to allow us to witness the action, I was attempting to _listen_, to ascertain whether your flesh had been ripped from your bones or not," she explained. "I find that the prospect of that happening to you is very unpleasant for me to think about."

Booth smirked, "Thanks, Bones."

"Dr. Saroyan, have the guards called to report on the shadows moving?" asked the Doctor.

"Yes, all four of them."

"Tell them to get away from the windows and retreat to the interior of the museum," he said, running up the ramp with the FBI duffel bag. He peeled off his suit jacket, then began tugging at his tie. "Now that we have Angela at the screens, I don't know why we left them there on the lookout. There's no sense risking it. Tell them to get somewhere well-lit."

"I'm on it," she said, pulling her phone from her hip again.

Booth, in turn, ran up the ramp and pulled the sheet, once more, off the body of the suicide victim. He lifted the body like a baby. He looked down uneasily at it, then stopped for a moment and shut his eyes.

"Booth, what are you doing?" asked his partner. "We're running out of time."

"I'm saying a quick prayer, Bones," he replied.

She sighed with exasperation, but he was finished within a few seconds. He made his way down the ramp carrying the fleshy corpse of a full-grown man, embalmed with psilocybin solution, and hemp. Hodgins held the door open for him.

"Um, you guys!" Angela's voice sudden burst out through the radio, frantically. "The shadows are in the building!"

All parties inside the TARDIS experienced a sudden rush of heartbeat and fear. They all looked at each other in panic.

Hodgins looked out the door. "I don't see any! What are you talking about?"

"No, they're coming through the World War II artifacts," she said. "Completely on the other side of the museum. A stream of them. I think they're going to try and ambush you from behind!"

"What the hell, Doctor, I thought they moved as one!" Hodgins cried out, slamming the TARDIS door.

Booth strained with the weight of the corpse. "Guys, let's figure this out... soon!"

"No, they don't. They _think _as one, and that was just a hypothesis. This is proof!" the Doctor said, now unbuttoning his cuffs and peeling off his shirt. He then bent his knees to untie his red high-top Converse. "The organisms in front of the museum saw me, and collectively, there was a reaction - they all retreated. But once we came inside, like I said, they regrouped a little. As a collective, they must have hatched a plan!"

"Damn it!" Hodgins shouted.

The Doctor removed his shoes, then moved for his socks. "It's all right, Dr. Hodgins. It might work to our advantage, actually. And they're still rather bloody slow. Now let's get dead body number one out of here!"

Hodgins re-opened the door, and Booth moved through it carefully, reverently, so as not to bruise the body.

"Ha!" shouted the Doctor, now standing beside the console only in his underwear. He snapped his trousers away from his body with flourish, announced, "Dr. Brennan, you're on!" then tossed her his trousers.

Without a word, she walked up the ramp and gathered the rest of the Doctor's blue pin-striped suit, his navy blue shirt, his burgundy-and-blue tie, his red shoes and white socks. She put the entire pile of clothing on top of the now-empty gurney and wheeled the whole thing back down the ramp.

Meanwhile, the Doctor was pulling pieces of an expensive black suit from the FBI duffel.

"Dr. Saroyan, if you could please lay out the Doctor's suit anatomically, then I can get started laying out the bones anatomically," Brennan said.

Cam nodded, and began to straighten out the garments, starting with the socks and shoes. Brennan gathered up the foot bones and deposited them into the socks, then deposited the socks inside the shoes.

"It seems like we could do a better job of sorting..."

"It's fine," Cam interrupted. "We don't have time to wrestle with the socks _and_ the bones, and... Doctor, the Vashta Nerada aren't going to notice, are they?"

"I very seriously doubt it," he said, pulling Dr. Sweets' white shirt on, and beginning to button it.

The two women set about filling the Doctor's suit with skeleton, making it movable on the gurney.

Hodgins went up the ramp to grab the large coolers that had been brought aboard with the body, then set aside. He allowed his eyes to unabashedly explore the array of weird controls on the console.

"Dr. Hodgins," the Doctor said, pulling on a pair of black suit trousers, tailored to fit an FBI psychological profiler, but that seemed to work just fine on the Doctor. "Are you all right?"

"I am, thanks," said Hodgins, though without his usual wide-eyed smile. "Just a bit awestruck. And overwhelmed."

He began to drag a cooler down the ramp, and Booth had returned without the body. "How are we doing in here?" he asked.

"Booth, I haven't done this in a while. Would you mind?" asked Cam, struggling with the Doctor's tie on the gurney.

He moved to help, and just when it seemed as though everything would be silent for a few minutes, Angela's voice came crackling over the radio again.

"Hey, team, they're leaking in all over the museum!"

"What do you mean _all over_?" the Doctor asked her.

"I mean, on all sides. They're soaking in, like the Jeffersonian is a sponge, and they're some kind of ugly, black, flesh-eating liquid!"

"Including here in the lobby?"

"No, actually," Angela said, her tone betraying surprise. "That's the only place where they're still holding off. They're obviously trying to lull you into thinking they're not coming, but Doctor, it's just a matter of time before they get you from behind."

The Doctor pulled on Sweets' dress shoes. "We'll have them on the run before that happens."

"Wait, Doctor, what about us?" asked Sweets himself. "We're not with you, all safe-and-sound in your ship. We're sitting ducks in here!"

"The comm room you're in is much closer to the middle of the museum than to any outside wall," the Doctor reminded him. "Again, we will have them out of here, before they get to you. And anyway, they're gunning for me, specifically now. They aren't going to slip under any closed doors just to take a peek 'round."

"God, I hope you're right," Sweets said uneasily.

"How's it coming, ladies?" The Doctor was addressing Drs. Brennan and Saroyan.

"Fine," Cam said. "Dr. Brennan just finished the vertebrae and ribs, and is now buttoning the shirt. "All that's left are the arms, hands and skull."

"And the bones of the inner-ear," said Brennan."

"Brilliant," said the Doctor, discarding Sweets' jacket and tie onto the console. Hodgins now set about dragging the last of the coolers down the ramp.

"Let me help you," said the Doctor. He moved, and picked up one side, thus relieving some of the pressure on Hodgins' back.

"You know what, dude?" Hodgins said as he faced the Doctor, walking slowly backward down the ramp. "If I were you, I'd flatten my hair."

"What?"

"If you want to confuse the Vashta Nerada, you'll need to change your hair. That up-'do is just as distinctive as that suit and those red Converse."

"You think?"

"Yep. Some of your more _fervent_ internet followers have identified you and photographed you based on your height and hair alone."

"If Angela were here, she'd take care of that for you," Brennan offered. "She's very good with all cosmetic and aesthetic matters. And she probably finds you attractive, and would want to touch your hair."

"Well, who wouldn't?" the Doctor quipped. "But she's not here, so... I'll just nip down the hall. Back in a mo'. Don't touch anything."

He ran off around the console, disappearing through an archway that the group presumed led to another part of the ship. Hodgins began unpacking the coolers, and Booth bent to help.

"I still don't understand what all that is for," Brennan said.

"The meat?" asked Hodgins, holding up packets of raw meat that the kitchen staff had brought to the lab.

"Yes, the meat."

"Are you kidding? We're about to give the Vashta Nerada a serious case of the munchies!"

"Better raw meat from the kitchen than from our bodies," Cam reminded her.

* * *

When the Doctor returned, five minutes later, he looked decidedly different. His clothes were slightly more loose-fitting than he was accustomed to, his white sleeves were rolled up, and he wore black trousers and dress shoes, rather than his usual, distinctive pinstripe-and-trainer combo. And to top it all off, his hair was now damp and slicked down, rather than mussed and spiked.

"Whoa, you look like a stockbroker," Hodgins commented.

The Doctor wrinkled his nose. "I know."

"I think everything is in place," said Booth. "I think we're ready to deploy."

"Deploy," mused the Doctor. "Spoken like a man with extensive training in special ops. Okay, good. Dr. Hodgins, have you set out the munchies?"

"I have. Don't worry - I was careful."

The Doctor walked down the ramp, then opened the door and look outside the TARDIS. There was a trail of beef jerky, raw chicken, lunch meat, various fast-food goodies, meatballs from the cafeteria, Slim Jims and the like, leading from the dead body where Booth had placed it, all the way to the TARDIS.

"Good man," the Doctor said. "And you have some leftovers, don't you, just like we planned?"

"Yep," Hodgins answered, indicating a small stash of meats left in the bottom of one of the large coolers.

"Then, Agent Booth, are you ready to _pull the trigger_?" the Doctor asked.

"Yep. Let's do it.

"The rest of you, get out of sight. Get to a place that's not too far into the museum, that's well-lit, round a few corners, and if you can manage it, airtight."

"All of that, _plus_ airtight is a pretty tall order," Cam told the Doctor.

"You know what we're dealing with, Dr. Saroyan," the Doctor reminded her. "Keep the criteria in mind, and use your considerable brains, that's all I'm saying."

"What will _you_ be doing?" Brennan asked the Doctor. "You have no body armor, and you believe that these organisms are, to use your words, _gunning_ for you."

"What's your point?" the Doctor asked with annoyance.

"You're exposed. Shouldn't you be hiding with the rest of them?" she wondered.

"The rest of _them?"_ asked Booth. "Don't you mean the rest of _us?_"

"No," she shrugged. "I was planning on telling you to join Cam and the others and find a good place to keep yourself safe from the Vashta Nerada. I will _pull the trigger,_ as it were."

"Are you crazy? Absolutely not," Booth said. "Nope, mm-mm. Out of the question."

"I wasn't asking your permission, Booth. I'm telling you what I'm planning on doing. Now move away from the gurney, please."

"Bones, I am not letting you go out there into the path of flesh-eating monsters!"

"Unless you believe that you have some kind of right to dominion over me because of our genders, then you must agree that I could, with the same protective air, say the same thing to you."

The Doctor tried to put a stop to the little row, but with no success.

"Bones..."

"Booth, you already risked your life once when you accompanied the Doctor out the front doors of the museum, and again when you carried the body of the suicide victim, embalmed with hallucinogenics, out into the lobby. I am the one who put the skeleton together to create this piece of the ruse. I am the one who leads _all_ work with skeletons. There is no _logical _reason why I shouldn't be the one to escort the skeleton out into the path of the Vashta Nerada. Now, move away from the gurney."

There was a long silence while the partners attempted to stare each other down.

The Doctor moved toward Dr. Saroyan, leaning over to ask, "Is there something there, is or is it my imagination?"

"It's not your imagination," she answered.

"Ah. What would _you_ do, if you were me?" he asked her.

"Let it play out," Cam whispered. "The only person who can change Dr. Brennan's mind is Booth. Might as well give them the room they need."

"This is their way of saying what they can't say," Hodgins whispered, joining in.

"Fighting?" asked the Doctor.

"Yep."

"Okay. I get it. I just hope they can fight quickly," said the Doctor.


	11. Chapter 11

**I believe this is the second-to-last chapter! This has been SO MUCH FUN!**

**So, for those of you who were wondering what would happen with all of that meat they gathered... well, here's your answer. Its moments are numbered.**

**Let's go out with a bang... if you read, then review, too! ;-)**

* * *

**Chapter 11**

Drs. Brennan, Hodgins and Saroyan snuck carefully out of the TARDIS, each armed with a flashlight, and tiptoed into the dimly track-lit area behind where the Police Box was parked. Cam led them down a side hallway where there were public restrooms, snack machines and drinking fountains for the Jeffersonian's thousands of daily visitors.

Normally, this area was lit up with stark fluorescents. At night, they had to make do with the sparse, off-hours safety lighting. It was the best they could do, without putting themselves out-of-range to help if the Doctor and Booth got into trouble. The cafeteria was too dark and the lab was too far away. And any air-tight facilities required passwords and/or security badges.

They crept into the ladies' room, and crouched, so as to make the least amount of surface-area available to any marauding Vashta Nerada. Flashlights were wielded like weapons, constantly sweeping, checking for out-of-place shadows.

* * *

Inside the TARDIS, the Doctor unloaded the leftover cache of meats that Hodgins had left in one of the coolers. It was just enough food to leave a trail all the way from the TARDIS' door, up the ramp and then around the console platform.

A call came, assuring the Doctor that Cam and the others were secure, or at least as close as they could get.

The Doctor and Agent Booth stood by the door and took deep breaths.

The Time Lord decided to break the heavy silence. "According to Dr. Saroyan, you're the only person who can change Dr. Brennan's mind."

"Yeah, that's probably true," Booth sighed. "And even I'm not that great at it."

"You succeeded this time," the Doctor smirked. "Got her out of harm's way."

"Yeah. Harm's way."

"Clever, clever."

Booth smirked back. "Well, I know her pretty well. When her sense of self-preservation doesn't get the best of her fear, then you just remind her that cops are a dime a dozen, but Forensic Anthropologists are rare, and she is tops in her field..." he snapped his fingers.

"The only man on Earth who can manipulate one of the great minds of the twenty-first century," the Doctor mused. "Who's the genius, then?"

Booth smiled sheepishly, but said nothing. The Doctor chuckled.

Only a meaningful look and a handshake passed between them then, and the Doctor opened the TARDIS' door, and left it ajar. Booth wheeled out the gurney, carrying the anatomically laid-out bones of a six-foot-tall, Eastern European murder victim wearing the Doctor's blue pin-striped suit and red trainers. He steered it expertly around the trail of meat, and then was careful to veer to the right, so as to stay temporarily out-of-sight of anyone looking through the Jeffersonian's front glass doors.

The Doctor watched as Booth moved gingerly across the ceramic floor, careful not to jostle nor displace the bones. Though, the Doctor suspected, the care he was taking was probably also out of respect for the human remains on the gurney.

When Booth reached the front wall, he said over the radio, "Angela, are we good?"

"Yep," she answered. "I've got the front of the building in view. The shadows there are holding steady."

"What about everywhere else?" asked the Doctor.

"Still slowly encroaching from all sides, Doctor," she said. "Better hurry."

"Right. Got it. Agent Booth?"

"Yeah, I'm ready," answered the FBI Agent with a gulp.

The Doctor, leaving the door of the TARDIS open, pulled the sonic screwdriver from the pocket of the borrowed black trousers he was wearing, and stepped out of sight. He placed his back firmly against the wall of the console room, about five feet from the door. He held the sonic and the walkie-talkie at the ready, took a deep breath, and tried not to hear the dual heartbeat, threatening to pound holes in his chest.

* * *

Agent Booth took a deep breath, said another quick prayer, and with his shoulder to the wall, he crept forward toward the glass doors. When he was as close as he could get, he gave a small heave and pushed the gurney forward, straight into the path of the glass doors. The gurney, and the well-dressed skeleton upon it, came to rest squarely in-view of any Vashta Nerada currently on the lookout in front of the Jeffersonian.

"Okay, it's done," Angela said over the radio system. "Booth has put the gurney in front of the doors."

Booth very quickly moved back along the wall, pulling his flashlight from his belt and illuminating his way as he crouched as far away as he could from the doors, the skeleton, the suicide victim's fleshy body, and the trail of meat.

For a long, tense few minutes, no one spoke. There was no word from Angela, nor from the Doctor. Booth just waited in the scariest dark space he had ever seen.

And then, "Okay, they're moving!" Angela shouted. "The shadows are moving toward the glass doors. But... not all the shadows. It seems like they're sending scouts to inspect. Can they do that?"

"They can, and they probably are," the Doctor responded.

"They're pressing right against the glass," she continued. "Okay, now they've paused."

"Are they looking through the glass?" Booth asked.

"I can't tell - it's not like I can see their little eyes. But I would assume so. What else could they be doing?" she asked.

"Can they see the suit? Can they tell?" Sweets asked.

"I don't know, Dr. Sweets," the Doctor replied, hearts still in his throat. "I just don't know."

After another pause, Angela spoke again. "Whoa, now the whole swarm is moving! They're all pressing against the door! I'd say they can definitely tell! They think the Doctor is dead! They're coming in!"

"Are you certain, Angela?" asked the Doctor.

"No, but... are any of us certain of anything at this point?"

"Are they inside the lobby?" Booth wanted to know.

"Yeah! I can see them seeping through the slats between the doors! They're oozing in, you guys! Stay out of sight!"

"Oh my God," Booth moaned, though not through the radio.

"The rest of the shadows are moving faster! The ones coming through the other parts of the museum... they're moving faster now, and they're headed toward the center. Or maybe to the lobby! It's open season on the Jeffersonian, everyone! Booth, get the hell out of there!"

"Where?" he demanded. "Where am I going to go, Angela?"

But she didn't have an answer.

At this point, Booth could see the black swarm gathering on top of and around the skeleton he had placed for them to see. They were inspecting it, one last time, to make sure the Doctor was out-of-the-picture.

"Psychically linked..." he mused to himself. "_Did you eat him? No, it wasn't us. Was it you guys? No. Then how did he get dead? We don't know, but here he is..."_

He hadn't expected the swarm to scrutinize the skeleton this way; he hoped against hope that the Doctor had been right, that they would not be able to discern the minute anthropological features that would give away the fact that this was not the Doctor's skeleton. He hoped that the blue suit would be enough...

And not for the first time, he was glad that his partner was as meticulous as she was. Otherwise, they might have wound up with a skeleton that was the wrong size, wrong gender, and who knew what else. As it was, they had chosen a slightly-off pelvis and a slightly-too-pronounced brow ridge. What might have happened without Bones?

"Come on, come on," he whispered. "See it! Come on, see it!"

As if on cue, the inky swarm seemed to change direction like a school of fish, and all at once, locked onto the direction of the embalmed body of the suicide victim, laying in plain sight in the lobby of the Jeffersonian.

"What's going on?" the Doctor's voice said over the radio. But Booth and Angela were too stunned to answer.

The swarm seemed to pause, hovering around the body's feet, and just above.

And then all at once, a horrible ripping sound filled the air, and in a flash, all of the flesh had been removed from the body, and only clean white bones remained.

Booth couldn't help himself, and neither could Angela or Sweets. All three could be heard crying out expletives.

"Shhh!" the Doctor scolded with a loud, harsh whisper. "Agent Booth, you're going to give away your position!"

And then, as Booth watched, something seemed to happen to the swarm.

"What the hell?" Booth whispered into the radio.

"What's wrong?" the Doctor asked.

"Oh, that's weird!" Angela said. "Doctor, it's like they're... swirling. Oscillating."

"That'll be the psilocybin," the Doctor reported. "This is what's supposed to happen."

"They ate the body, paused, then went all... stoned," she commented. "Oh, you know sometimes I freaking hate my job, but this is not one of those times."

No sooner had she made this comment than there was another terrible ripping sound, cutting across the lobby and coming over the radio. She and Booth saw the trail of meat leading to the TARDIS basically simply disappear before their eyes.

"Munchies!" Angela cried.

* * *

"What the hell?" Booth had whispered into the radio.

"What's wrong?" the Doctor had asked.

Then Angela had described the strange "swirling... oscillating" of the psilocybin-laced swarm of Vashta Nerada.

He was dying to peek, look for himself and see what sort of psychedelic effect the magic mushrooms had had on the carnivorous shadows, but he dared not. He knew, as Angela pointed out, that they were only pausing for a moment in their stony haze. The plan was for them to follow the trail of meat all the way into the TARDIS, and he most certainly didn't want to be standing right in the doorway when that happened.

Case in point, a few seconds later, the Vashta Nerada's signature flesh-consuming _rip_ filled the air outside, and Angela aptly cried out, "Munchies!"

And indeed, only another second and a half passed before all of the meat on the trail into the TARDIS had disappeared as well, leaving only shredded wrappers and boxes behind. Suddenly, the Time Rotor went dark.

The Doctor's eyes went wide, and his mouth dropped open. "Wha..." He started to step forward, to investigate.

Then Angela's voice crackled across the radio again. "Doctor, the rest of the shadows are doing the same thing... they've gone all _Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds_, and they're coming. Fast, now! Swirly, whirly and fast! Heads up!"

The Doctor glued himself once more to the wall of the TARDIS and waited only another ten seconds before a hissing mass of charcoal grey swept in through the TARDIS' door, just as Angela had described: swirly.

Almost in a curly queue, like smoke wafting in a cartoon, they rushed into the console room, and darkened the Time Rotor even further.

"Light-headed, stoned and attracted to shiny things," the Doctor muttered to himself. "Angela, do you see anymore shadows moving anywhere in the museum?"

There was a short pause, and then, "No! They're gone!"

"Outside?"

"No, the surrounding swarms all came in with that last batch!" she said excitedly. "How did you do that?"

"Remember, they think as one," he reminded her, trying not to make noise or move. "Psychic field. When a few of them get felled by mind-altering drugs, guess what happens."

"Wicked!" said Sweets over the radio. "Doctor, that's brilliant!"

"Not bad for a delusional non-sociopath, eh?" the Doctor chuckled, not able to help himself.

"Doctor do you need help?" Booth asked.

"No, Agent Booth, don't you dare move until I'm safely gone!" the Doctor commanded.

"What if..." Booth started to protest.

But the Doctor tossed the radio to the side. Then, employing a trick he had learned while running-in with the Vashta Nerada last time, he snapped his fingers, and the TARDIS door slammed shut. He flicked the index finger of his other hand, and the sonic screwdriver buzzed, activating the spatial displacement circuits of the TARDIS.

Internally, he was glad they didn't need to travel in time, as the Time Rotor was being strangled by a dense, black swarm at the moment. He also thanked an unseen force for not letting any of the swarm loose within the inner reaches of the TARDIS to feed on Rose's grey cat or the white horse named Arthur.

Nevertheless, the Rotor must have been able to pulse a bit, because the swarm surrounding it went a bit shiny and swirly again, oscillating again. He smiled.

Although, he still tried very hard not to move as the TARDIS' gears crescendoed and he felt the vessel move. When the pre-programmed coordinates were reached, the ship stopped and the gears died down. The Doctor once more opened the doors with a snap of his fingers, taking a careful, quick glance outside.

He whispered the name of the planet to himself, and smiled. "Viandi," he said.


	12. Chapter 12

**This is the final chapter, my friends! This was a difficult endeavor, but in the end, great fun to produce! Thanks for all the positive feedback - I honestly find it very difficult to "go on" without it.**

**The ending is a bit, well, open-ended. And there are "shades" alluding to the 10th Doctor's impending end. Maybe the crew at the Jeffersonian can have an Eleventh Doctor adventure sometime... ;-) **

**Enjoy!**

* * *

**Chapter 12**

A tall, thin man in a suit stood by a gurney and waited. He glanced at his watch. He was a busy man, and time was of the essence.

Dr. Camille Saroyan stood on the other side of the gurney with a clipboard, staring at a box, in the corner of which was printed, in tiny letters, the words, _cause of death._

She sighed, and wrote, "Unknown."

She had spent the last few long, long moments contemplating whether to write "Natural," or "Unknown." Neither was true, but she couldn't very well write, "Microscopic Interplanetary Carnivores Lurking In the Shadows." As such, there was no hope of any kind of real "justice" for Charles Hasbrook, so the question became: which _cause of death _would incite fewer probing questions from the family, and therefore less potential for bad press for the Jeffersonian. Since they could not prove a death from any natural cause, she decided to go with the explanation that, by definition, had no explanation. It could not be disproven either, and as a bonus, was subject to change, should any new evidence surface. She rather doubted that any would, however.

She scribbled her signature at the bottom of the page, and the man in the suit thanked her, shook her hand, gave her a business card from the mortuary where he worked, and wheeled the gurney out. She watched him go, marveling at the utter unbelievable weirdness the bones inside the wooden box had brought about.

* * *

Five other crime-fighters sat at a conference table in a brightly-lit loft that overlooked the Jeffersonian's Medico-Legal lab. Each of them was cradling a cup of coffee between two hands, but no one was drinking. No one was speaking either.

When Cam reached the top of the stairs, she poured herself a cup, then took the sixth seat at the table, across from Agent Booth, beside Dr. Brennan.

"How's Mr. Hasbrook doing?" Booth asked her.

"He's dead, Booth," Brennan admonished. "He's clearly not doing well."

Cam ignored her. "He's headed home to his family," she said. "Or, at least, to a funeral home, cause of death unknown."

"It's better that way," Booth reassured her.

"But it's not the truth," Brennan pointed out, though without any of her usual truth-revering indignation.

"I know," Cam conceded. "What do you think would happen if I reported the truth?"

"Loony bin," Sweets muttered. Then he seemed to perk up, and asked, "Sorry, did I say that out loud?"

"Well," Booth said. "You might be interested to know that this morning when I checked my messages, Andrew Hacker had called to tell me that Metro Police has received reports from the meat packing plant where Hasbrook worked... about two hundred pounds of refrigerated beef has gone missing from their storage units."

Cam couldn't help but chuckle. "What?"

"Yep," Booth said, nodding. "Hacker kicked it to me because he remembered the name of the packing plant from when we pulled in the Hasbrook case. Figured it was a _mighty _big coincidence."

"That guy is sharp," Cam commented.

Brennan's eyes lit up. "Yes, he's very sharp. That's one of the reasons I like him. Not because of his superior height, broad shoulders or undoubted skill with a weapon."

Angela and Sweets caught each others' eye, and both suppressed a laugh.

Booth winced. "Bones, can we not?"

"So, does this mean there will be an investigation of the plant?" asked Hodgins, wearily.

Booth began to answer, but a strange, faint grinding sound reached all of their ears. They all looked at each other with varying degrees of excitement, surprise and fatigue. What's more, all of the people in blue and grey coats currently milling about in the lab below stopped and looked around for the source of the sound.

"Where's it coming from?" Sweets asked.

"I think it's the Autopsy Room," Cam answered.

* * *

When the team arrived in Dr. Saroyan's work space, the TARDIS was already there, and the Doctor was standing about, waiting.

"Blimey, this lab offers no privacy," he said, by way of _hello_. "Everything's glass walls and open doorways. Where's a bloke supposed to materialise a spaceship around here?" He gestured to the giant window that lined one side of Cam's office, and everyone noticed the vertical blinds swinging back and forth in the wake of the TARDIS' arrival. Behind the vertical blinds, there was a long, glass-paneled wall, affording everyone outside the opportunity to glance inside.

"So," Sweets said, stepping forward. "Nice outfit."

The Doctor smiled brightly. "Oh, thanks, do you like it?" he asked, two hands on hips, turning sideways, and jutting out a hip exaggeratedly. He was modeling an ensemble that looked very much like grey hospital scrubs, accompanied by a white apron, stained with disturbing red spots. "I call it _Meat-Packer's Chic._ The really stylish visor is inside the TARDIS."

"I take it you didn't just decide to work there because they're short-handed since Hasbrook's death," said Sweets.

"No, indeed, Dr. Sweets," said the Doctor.

"So you've already heard about the meat gone missing," Agent Booth assumed.

"He's always one step ahead," Hodgins said, re-adopting his old awestruck air, marveling at the Doctor's prowess.

The Doctor smirked. "The Vashta Nerada are a dangerous gang. Fortunately, in their large numbers, they usually make themselves known pretty quickly."

"Let us help you!" Hodgins offered, practically shouting.

"No," the Doctor said without hesitation. "You lot helped me before because you happened to be in the path of these things, and you also happen to be a band of bloody geniuses. This time, I'm not dragging anyone into it. I'm going to find a way to evacuate that plant before anything else happens. I just have to learn the inner-workings first. Have to make them trust me."

"Well, at least let me get you hooked up with more 'shrooms," Hodgins said.

"Thanks, I might take you up on that," the Doctor said.

"I didn't hear that," Booth said, covering his hears. "I did _not_ hear that."

"I don't know how I would deploy them in the plant," said the Doctor. "But there's probably a way."

"Wouldn't plain old marijuana do the trick?" Angela asked. "I know a guy you could call. I mean, if you're trying to give them the munchies again..."

"People," Booth interrupted. "I'm standing _right here_!"

"Why don't you just put your suit back on?" Brennan wondered. "They seemed to know you in the suit, and it made them back off."

"Only temporarily," Angela pointed out. "After they hatched a plan, they came right for him."

Cam frowned. "Right, so, you be careful, Doctor. Do you hear me?"

"I hear you," he told her, with a slight smile.

"I don't want yours to be the next body we wheel in here and release with cause of death unknown, okay?" When she said _unknown_, she accented it with air-quotes, illustrated with her fingers.

"Yes," said Dr. Brennan. "I would find the task of examining your skeleton very unpleasant, though I have only known you for a short time."

"How the hell are you going to investigate that place without getting... you know, eaten?" Angela wanted to know.

"Carefully," the Doctor said with a shrug.

The whole room was uneasily quiet for a moment, until Sweets took two steps forward toward the Doctor. The two went toe-to-toe, a slight scowl crossing the Doctor's features.

"Do you have a death-wish?" Sweets asked him, squinting slightly, searching the Time Lord's eyes.

"What makes you say that?" the Doctor asked, scowling, barely moving his lips.

"Behavioral expert," Sweets said.

"Human behaviour," the Doctor reminded him. "I'm not human."

"You're human enough," Sweets said.

"Thanks," said the Doctor, softening his expression. "But I'm fine."

"Are you sure?"

"I'm sure."

"If you ever need someone to talk to..."

"I know. Thank you." He was giving Sweets a soft smile now.

Sweets nodded with concern, and took a couple steps backward, in retreat.

"Doctor, from what I understand about you," Hodgins said, rather seriously. "If you get caught by the Vashta Nerada, your death will be instantaneous, which means you won't be able to regenerate. Maybe you should..."

"What? Leave it alone? Let swarms of carnivorous microorganisms overtake a large building where _people_ with _lives_ dwell every day, unwittingly? People with other people who love them, and are expecting them to come home at night?" the Doctor asked.

"Maybe you should pull back a bit," Hodgins said gently. "Observe from the outside. Try to reason with the swarms - didn't you say you'd done that before? Couldn't you find a way to _give them_ a voice for a few minutes? Long enough to dispatch them humanely like you did here?"

"Speaking of which, what did you do with them?" asked Cam.

"I took them to a planet called Viandi," he said. "It's their planet of origin, just like I promised. The humanoid population there is extict - or rather, long-since emigrated. What's left is only varying species of large and small, unintelligent mammals and reptiles. Or, at least, what pass for mammals and reptiles on planets other than Earth. For thousands of years, there has been a population and carrying capacity problem. Millions more are born than can survive, and there's no intelligent life-force left to control it."

"You would call the Vashta Nerada an intelligent life-force?" asked Hodgins.

"Well, sort of," the Doctor shrugged. "In any case, they'll thin the herd, so to speak, maybe free up some resources. And with no humanoid foes out to kill, control or otherwise wrangle them into submission, the Vashta Nerada will only feed when hungry."

"I thought you said this species was malevolent," Dr. Brennan reminded him.

He crossed his arms and pursed his lips, unsure of himself. "I did say that, didn't I? Well, I just have to believe that if they're not pursued, they'll settle down. Besides, I have no other ideas as to where to leave them."

"If you catch another giant swarm at the meat-packing plant, assuming you are successful in not having your flesh unceremoniously torn from your bones, can the planet Viandi sustain them, without excessive depletion of the other animal populations?" Brennan wondered.

"It's a whole planet, Dr. Brennan," the Doctor explained. "The swarm I deposited there was descending upon the Jeffersonian, which, formidable as it is, takes up only a speck of this planet. Same will be true for any swarms I find knocking about the meat-packing plant. Viandi will be fine."

"What if the swarms spread? What if they reproduce? Maybe you and I should try and find a humane sterilizer..." Hodgins offered.

"They _will_ spread, Dr. Hodgins, and they _will_ reproduce. But they will spread thin and form smaller swarms in smaller pockets - those exist everywhere in the universe. More will be born, while others die," the Doctor said. "They won't take over the planet, I promise."

Hodgins held up his hands, to show he was "disarmed."

"Doctor, what do we do if they come back?" asked Booth. "We can't count on having all the advantages we had today, and we can't just _call _you if we need you..."

"And we wouldn't want to anyway," Brennan added, defiantly.

The Doctor shrugged. "Get the hell out first, and ask questions later."

"What if we get surrounded again?" asked Sweets.

"What if one of you gets hit by a bus tomorrow?" the Doctor asked with a smirk.

"Right," conceded Sweets. "I get it."

"I don't know what that means," Brennan said.

Patiently, Sweets explained, "It means we can go _what if, what if, what if _all day long. In the end, it comes down to common sense, and... well, playing the odds."

"Right, and sometimes you can't beat the odds, and that's why life sucks," Cam shrugged. "We see that every day in this lab."

"But, if you get in a jam..." the Doctor said, contemplating. "Dr. Hodgins knows how to get my attention."

"I do?" Hodgins asked.

"Sure. Just ask for Angela's help," said the Time Lord, winking at the computer arts specialist. "Between the two of you, I'm sure you can work it out."

There was a slightly awkward silence, when Cam said, "Doctor, would you like to stay for a cup of coffee? I mean, it's institutional coffee, but it's not totally intolerable if you use some of the French Vanilla creamer."

The Doctor smiled appreciatively. "Sorry, but I'm on my break," he said. "Got to get back to the slaughterhouse."

"And you don't do _family_ anyway, do you?" asked Hodgins with a wink.

"Not these days, no," said the Doctor, with a sigh.

And with that, he shook hands with each of the Jeffersonian's elite Medico-Legal lab crew (except for Angela, who insisted on a hug), and its auxiliary FBI staff, and shut the door to the TARDIS.

The vessel faded away in a hail of wind and grinding gears.

* * *

**The End**


End file.
